ABSTRACT
While there exist a number of mechanically sophisticated exoskeletons and prostheses, with articulations similar to that of the intact human arm and hand, these devices remain limited in their ability to safely and comprehensively augment human dexterity. In particular, due to the limits of conventional sensing, users can often modulate only a single degree of freedom, and we have almost no understanding of the resulting physiological impacts on the user’s musculoskeletal system.
We address these dual problems of device capability and safety by leveraging a novel class of signals — muscle deformation, as measured via ultrasound — to probe individual muscle forces, which cannot currently be measured noninvasively but are key to understanding musculoskeletal dynamics during dexterous motion. In this talk, I will discuss our current efforts to precisely characterize this deformation signal and its relationship to muscle output force, and to measure it in real time, paving the way for both the extraction of multiple independent signals for high-dimensional device control and enhanced overall understanding of the joint human–machine dynamical system.