Our lab members have recently reached significant milestones! On 31st October, Cheryl successfully passed her confirmation, with her research focusing on “Dexterous Prosthetic In-hand Manipulation with Human in the Loop Control”. In addition, Kusal also passed his confirmation on 22nd November with a research topic of “Effects of Neuromuscular Fatigue on Lifting Biomechanics”.
On 21st November, Mingrui delivered his completion seminar. His thesis, titled “Physical Human-Robot Interface: Modelling Approaches and its Effect on Human-Exoskeleton Interaction”, investigates the mechanical behaviour of the physical human-robot interface (pHRI) and its impact on human-exoskeleton interaction. The findings highlight the importance of incorporating pHRI compliance in actuator design, provide a detailed understanding of pHRI stiffness variability, and propose novel approaches for human kinematics estimation that balance precision and usability.
We are proud of their hard work and dedication — congratulations to all!
Journalist: Xinliang
In October, Jihoon travelled to Kobe, Japan, to present his PhD research at IEEE SENSORS 2024 – a renowned international forum for sharing advancements in sensor technologies by researchers, engineers, and practitioners. This event offered Jihoon an excellent opportunity to explore cutting-edge developments in sensors and their applications across diverse fields.
At the conference, Jihoon presented his work on a patchable, non-invasive, inkjet-printed wearable electromyography sensor. This innovative sensor is designed for unobtrusive, comfortable, and long-duration use, providing a compact and low-cost solution while ensuring high signal quality and resistance to body movement.
Jihoon’s PhD work focuses on developing practical and user-friendly biomedical sensors that ensure reliable data collection while prioritising user comfort for broader applications in healthcare and beyond.
Journalist: Jihoon
In September, Tomislav, Jarvis and Jon travelled to Heidelberg to attend Biorob. Biorob is a biennial International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics. This was a fantastic chance to see developments in human-robot interaction and exoskeletons while discovering and catching up with many teams working in our field.
Of our team Jarvis presented his work on using skin stretch devices to transmit information through haptics while Tomislav presented his and Mingrui’s work on the uniqueness of gait patterns across different walking conditions. Jon also co-organised a workshop on joint interaction (both between humans and between humans and robots).
After Biorob, Jon also presented his work on training people to perform trimanual coordination at the Symposium on human interfacing and augmentation held at Imperial College London.
Journalist: Jon
On Wednesday, 2nd October, Hengchang presented his Completion Seminar for his thesis titled “The Convergence Speed Improvement of Extremum Seeking Control with Practical Considerations”.
Hengchang’s work focuses on extremum-seeking control (ESC), which optimises system performance using real-time data but with non-smooth actuator nonlinearities like hysteresis and slow convergence. His thesis improves ESC algorithms by managing a generalised actuator hysteresis model, incorporating fixed-time optimisation, and developing a fast ESC design for Hammerstein-type systems without requiring time-scale separation.
Congratulations Hengchang!
Journalist: Xinliang
We have been fortunate to welcome three new PhD students in the last few months: JQ Loh, Marcus Kho and Jayan Greenwood. JQ and Jayan will be working on our Assistive and Rehabilitation Robotics project while Marcus will work on supporting human robot co-evolution. We look forward to the interesting research that each of them will do in the coming years.
Journalist: Jon
On August 18th and 20th, our lab participated in two events: the university’s Open Day for future students and their families, and the department’s Open House for current engineering students. The lab’s research attracted significant interest, showcasing both our innovative outputs and the various opportunities available to graduate and undergraduate students. Our volunteers actively engaged with visitors throughout the events. A big thank you to everyone who contributed to making our lab a success in the Open Day and Open House.
Journalist: Xinliang
In June, Justin and Vincent travelled to Sydney to attend ISPRM. ISPRM is the yearly world congress of the International Society of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Medicine which we were fortunate to have in Sydney.
This was a great opportunity to discover the work of many teams in the field and to connect with the physio and rehab community that we work closely with in multiple projects in the lab. While an international conference, being in Sydney allowed us to meet and attend talks by many Australian researchers. The rehab robotics and technology community was particularly well represented with multiple dedicated sessions. Not surprisingly, while many researchers presented interesting developments in the field and implementations of technology, we could hear the need for dedicated guidelines around this implementation.
While our team presented two posters at the conference, Justin also presented his work on the evaluation of his GAMD: the Gait Aid Measurement Device intended to evaluate people’s gait without the use of expensive and complex motion capture systems.
Journalist: Vincent
We are excited to share that Mark attended his PhD graduation ceremony on August 13th. His doctoral research, titled “Measuring lower-back injury risk in repetitive stooped work: a population-data driven approach with application in sheep shearing”, has been met with great acclaim. Congratulations on this significant milestone, Dr Robinson!
Journalist: Xinliang
On 14th March, A/Prof Bandara, a visiting academic from Kyushu University, presented a guest lecture in the Manhari Room, Melbourne Connect. The lecture was on the topic of robot-assisted rehabilitation. This talk underscored the advancements and transformative approaches integrating cutting-edge robotics into post-stroke rehabilitation and minimally invasive surgery, thereby shaping the future of healthcare practices in these critical domains.
Journalist: Xinliang
We are pleased to announce that Jarvis has successfully passed his confirmation for his project “Wearable Haptic Feedback for Conveying Proprioception of Supernumerary Robotic Limbs” on 22nd Feb. We congratulate Jarvis for all of this hard work and look forward to his continued research progress!
Additionally, we extend our congratulations to Xinliang and Tianshi. Xinliang passed his confirmation on 28th Feb with his topic “Muscle Signal Based Interface for Responsive Physically-Assistive Robotics”, and on 13th March, Tianshi delivered his completion seminar for his research titled “Systematic Synthesis of Discrete-Pose Human Prosthetic Interfaces (HPIs)”. We applaud their milestones and wish them continued success in their research.
Journalist: Jon, Xinliang
Number of posts found: 48