Movement Augmentation

Supernumerary Limbs

Our supernumerary limb project focuses on developing robotic tools to extend the number of mechanical degrees of freedom that a human user can control. However, with greater degrees of freedom comes a greater control responsibility. Using our Universal Robot UR3 as a wearable supernumerary limb we intend to investigate the development of command interfaces, control algorithms and feedback devices to enable movement augmentation technologies to move from the lab towards real application spaces such as robotic surgery and industrial assembly.

Selected relevant publications:

  • Y. Huang, J. Eden, E. Ivanova, and E. Burdet, Can Training Make Three Arms Better than Two Heads for Trimanual Coordination?, IEEE Open Journal of Engineering in Medicine and Biology, 2023.
  • J. Eden, M. Bräcklein, J. Ibáñez, D.Y. Barsakcioglu, G. Di Pino, D. Farina, E. Burdet, and C. Mehring, Principles of human movement augmentation and the challenges in making it a reality, Nature Communications, 2022.
  • A. Noccaro, J. Eden, G. Di Pino, D. Formica, and E. Burdet, Human performance in three-hands tasks, Scientific Reports, 2021.

Feedback for Augmentation

When a person moves their own arms, they are able to exploit a wide variety of signals including their vision, proprioception and tactile information to understand their arm’s location and its interaction with the environment. This project explores how to approximate such information for supernumerary limbs – for example by providing artificial haptic feedback to account for the user not possessing natural joint sensors to understand the robot’s position. The understanding developed within this work is used to inform the development of supernumerary limb interfaces as well as training paradigms for their use.

Selected relevant publications:

  • M. O Meara, X. Cheng, J. Eden, E. Ivanova, and E. Burdet, A third eye to augment environment perception, IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-Man), 2023.
  • C.M. Blondin, E. Ivanova, J. Eden, and E. Burdet, Perception and Performance of Electrical Stimulation for Proprioception, Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2021.