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Foundations of Robotics Seminar, April 7, 2010
Time
and Place | Seminar Abstract
Mechanics and Control of Brain-Machine Interface Systems
Timothy Bretl
Aerospace Engineering
UIUC
NSH 1507
Talk 4:30 pm
In this talk I will describe a brain-machine interface that enables a human pilot to fly an unmanned aircraft with input only from an electroencephalograph (EEG), which is used in this case to distinguish between left- and right-hand motor imagery in the brain. We view this process as communication and view the problem of interface design as the problem of constructing an optimal communication protocol that can be derived using new results from feedback information theory. Proof-of-concept hardware experiments show that our approach works in practice with a real aircraft.
I will use this example system as a point of departure for the broader topic of neuromechanical engineering, which is focused on establishing an experimentally-verified, quantitative, mathematical theory of human sensory-motor control that can serve as a predictive tool for the design of machines that involve forceful, physical interaction and cooperation with humans. This emerging field presents many exciting new challenges in robotics research.
Timothy Bretl received his B.S. in Engineering and B.A. in Mathematics from Swarthmore College in 1999, and his M.S. in 2000 and Ph.D. in 2005 both in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University. Subsequently, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Computer Science, also at Stanford University. Since 2006, he has been with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he is an Assistant Professor of Aerospace Engineering. His current research interests are at the intersection of robotics and neuroscience.
The Robotics Institute is part of the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University.