Haptic Exploration and Reflex Motor control In a Neuroprosthesis – HERMIN

Project HERMIN aims to develop shared control strategies between a robotic prosthesis and its user. We will investigate the impact of augmenting a bidirectional neuroprosthesis with autonomous motor routines that implement safety-related reflexes and perform touch exploration for obstacle detection and avoidance. We will implement such routines in our 4 degrees-of-freedom, miniature mouse forelimb neuroprosthesis, in addition to the volitional movements controlled by chronic recordings of the firing rate of neurons in the motor cortex. The neuroprosthesis will provide real-time feedback to the mouse using spatio-temporally patterned optogenetic neuronal activation tools that are unique to the mouse model. We hypothesise that, despite the mismatch between neuronal commands and the effective movements during the execution of the autonomous motor routines, a rich touch and nociceptive-like feedback to the mouse cortex will ensure that (1) prosthesis control and embodiment is preserved during reflex action, and that (2) the enhanced tactile exploration provided by autonomous haptic routines will augment the prosthesis embodiment and/or performance during behavioural tests. This interdisciplinary project requires the complementary expertise of the 3 partners in robotics modelling and control, brain-machine interfacing and animal behaviour. The development of shared control strategies between robot and user constitutes a pre-clinical trial of robotic prostheses with brain-machine interface for human users, and might also be translated in the non invasive context of physical human-robot interaction with exoskeletons.