Auctions, preferences, and wearable robots: The development of meaningful exoskeletons and robotic prostheses
Auctions, preferences, and wearable robots: The development of meaningful exoskeletons and robotic prostheses
Elliott J Rouse, PhD
Associate Professor
Director, Neurobionics Lab
Department of Robotics
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
When: Friday, February 17, 3:00pm to 4:15pm.
Abstract: Lower-limb wearable robots—such as exoskeletons and robotic prostheses—have struggled to have the societal impact expected from these exciting technologies. In part, these challenges stem from fundamental gaps in our understanding of how and why these systems should assist their wearer during use. Wearable robots are typically designed to meet a single, specific objective (e.g. reduction of metabolic rate), however, in reality, these technologies impact many aspects of gait and user experience. In this talk, I will discuss our recent work leveraging user preference as a ‘meta-criterion’ in design and control, over which the user is able to internally balance the quantitative and qualitative tradeoffs present when using these technologies (e.g. stability, comfort, exertion, speed). Specifically, I will highlight our work understanding user-preferred assistance settings in a variable-stiffness prosthesis and bilateral ankle exoskeletons, demonstrating user-preferred assistance settings are reliable and diverse, and can be obtained in less than two minutes. In addition, I will discuss how user-preferred assistance can be adjusted automatically with human-in-the-loop optimization, which is able to converge on user-preferred settings with an accuracy of ~90%. Finally, I will introduce a new approach for understanding the success of assistive technologies using tools from behavioral economics. I will describe and quantify the economic value added by ankle exoskeletons during uphill walking, including the cost incurred from wearing the added mass, as well as the value added by the exoskeleton assistance. Together, this talk will underscore the role of the user in the development of wearable robots, including advocating for a shift away from the single-objective development and assessment of these technologies.
Date and Time
Location
Hosts
Registration
-
Add Event to Calendar
Loading virtual attendance info...
- GMU Fairfax Campus- Innovation Hall 207
- Fairfax, Virginia
- United States 22030
- Building: Innovation Hall 207
- Room Number: 207
Speakers
Elliott J Rouse, PhD
Biography:
Elliott Rouse is an Associate Professor in the Robotics and Mechanical Engineering Departments at the University of Michigan (U-M). He directs the Neurobionics Lab, whose vision is to reverse engineer how the nervous system regulates the mechanics of locomotion, and use this information to develop meaningful assistive technologies that leverage this perspective. To this end, his group studies the design, control, and evaluation of lower-limb exoskeletons and robotic prostheses. He has launched the careers of four doctoral students, two of which are faculty at Research 1 institutions. He is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award and is a member of the IEEE EMBS Technical Committee on BioRobotics. In addition, he is on the Editorial Boards for IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, and Wearable Technologies. Elliott received the BS degree in mechanical engineering from The Ohio State University and the PhD degree in biomedical engineering from Northwestern University. Afterwards, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the MIT Media Lab. Prior to joining U-M, Elliott was faculty in the Schools of Medicine and Engineering at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and Northwestern University, in addition to working in professional autoracing. In 2019 – 2020, he was a visiting faculty member at (Google) X, where he maintains an appointment.