Mini-symposium on Human-Robot Interaction and Interfacing

On July 31st, the Human Robotics Lab hosted a mini-symposium on human-robot interaction and interfacing with visiting neuroscientists, roboticists and a performance from the local performance artist Stelarc. Within the symposium, we heard interesting talks from Prof. Carsten Mehring (University of Freiburg) on efforts to identify biological signals for augmenting the mechanical abilities of humans; Dr Ekaterina Ivanova (Queen Mary University of London/Imperial College London) on understanding the mechanisms of haptic communication between groups of humans and in trying to replicate those mechanisms for human-robot interaction. While Prof. Etienne Burdet (Imperial College London) was unfortunately unable to join us in person, we were also very lucky to have a talk from him on impedance and muscle adaptation for human-robot interaction.

To conclude the symposium, Stelarc then gave a demonstration that integrated his extended arm with a sonic bracelet and our own EMU robot (for gravitational support), providing his own unique perspective and insights on human augmentation through robotics.

Journalist: Jon