Publications related to Bionics

Colloidal self-assembly of soft neural interfaces from injectable photovoltaic microdevices

Mahmut Selman Sakar, Zhangjun Huang, Murat Kaynak, Haiyan Jia

Biomimetic retinas with a wide field of view and high resolution are in demand for neuroprosthetics and robot vision. Conventional neural prostheses are manufactured outside the application area and implanted as a complete device using invasive surgery. He ...

2023

Identification of the trade-off between speed and efficiency in undulatory swimming using a bio-inspired robot

Auke Ijspeert, Karen Ann J Mulleners, Laura Isabel Paez Coy, Kamilo Andres Melo Becerra, Alexandros Anastasiadis, Eric Daniel Tytell

Anguilliform swimmers, like eels or lampreys, are highly efficient swimmers. Key to understanding their performances is the relationship between the body’s kinematics and resulting swimming speed and efficiency. But, we cannot prescribe kinematics to livin ...

Nature Research2023

Puppeteer and Marionette: Learning Anticipatory Quadrupedal Locomotion Based on Interactions of a Central Pattern Generator and Supraspinal Drive

Auke Ijspeert, Guillaume Denis Antoine Bellegarda, Milad Shafiee Ashtiani

Quadruped animal locomotion emerges from the interactions between the spinal central pattern generator (CPG), sensory feedback, and supraspinal drive signals from the brain. Computational models of CPGs have been widely used for investigating the spinal co ...

IEEE2023

Revealing the complexity of ultra-soft hydrogel re-swelling inside the brain

Stéphanie Lacour, Outman Akouissi, John Martin Kolinski, Michael Shur, Olivier Didier Christian Rizzo

The brain is an ultra-soft viscoelastic matrix. Sub-kPa hydrogels match the brain's mechanical properties but are challenging to manipulate in an implantable format. We propose a simple fabrication and processing sequence, consisting of de-hydration, patte ...

2023

Control and Morphology Optimization of Passive Asymmetric Structures for Robotic Swimming

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge, Nana Obayashi, Andrea Vicari, Kamran Shakir

Aquatic creatures exhibit remarkable adaptations of their body to efficiently interact with the surrounding fluid. The tight coupling between their morphology, motion, and the environment are highly complex but serves as a valuable example when creating bi ...

IEEE-INST ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERS INC2023

Bidirectional bionic limbs: a perspective bridging technology and physiology

Silvestro Micera

Precise control of bionic limbs relies on robust decoding of motor commands from nerves or muscles signals and sensory feedback from artificial limbs to the nervous system by interfacing the afferent nerve pathways. Implantable devices for bidirectional co ...

IOP Publishing Ltd2022

Scalable Fabrication and Actuation of a Human Inspired Hand Through 3D Printed Flexures and Combinatorial Actuation

Josephine Anna Eleanor Hughes, Kai Christian Junge, Carlo Bosio

The fabrication and control of robot hands with biologically inspired structure remains challenging due to its cost and complexity. In this paper we explore how widely available FDM printers can be used to fabricate complex hand structures by leveraging co ...

FRONTIERS MEDIA SA2022

Toward higher-performance bionic limbs for wider clinical use

Silvestro Micera

Most prosthetic limbs can autonomously move with dexterity, yet they are not perceived by the user as belonging to their own body. Robotic limbs can convey information about the environment with higher precision than biological limbs, but their actual perf ...

NATURE RESEARCH2023

The various forms of sensorimotor plasticity following limb amputation and their link with rehabilitation strategies

Estelle Emeline Raffin

Limb amputation is characterized by complex and intermingled brain reorganization processes combining sensorimotor deprivation induced by the loss of the limb per se, and compensatory behaviors, such as the over-use of the intact or remaining limb. While a ...

2021

Towards rich motion skills with the lightweight quadruped robot Serval

Auke Ijspeert, Peter Eckert, Tomislav Horvat, Anja Eva Maria Schmerbauch

Bio-inspired robotic designs introducing and benefiting from morphological aspects present in animals allowed the generation of fast, robust, and energy-efficient locomotion. We used engineering tools and interdisciplinary knowledge transferred from biolog ...

SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD2020

Morphological Neural Computation Restores Discrimination of Naturalistic Textures in Trans-radial Amputees

Silvestro Micera, Francesco Maria Petrini, Simone Romeni, Ivo Strauss, Giacomo Valle, Fabrizio Vecchio, Roberto Puddu

Humans rely on their sense of touch to interact with the environment. Thus, restoring lost tactile sensory capabilities in amputees would advance their quality of life. In particular, texture discrimination is an important component for the interaction wit ...

Nature Research2020

Design and development of the efficient anguilliform swimming robot- MAR

Auke Ijspeert, Peter Eckert, Anouk Looijestijn

Propulsion of swimming robots at the surface and underwater is largely dominated by rotary propellers due to high thrust, but at the cost of low efficiency. Due to their inherently high speed turning motion, sharp propeller blades and generated noise, they ...

2020

Restoration of sensory information via bionic hands

Silvestro Micera

This Review discusses non-invasive and invasive technologies for conveying artificial sensory feedback through bionic hands. ...

NATURE RESEARCH2023

Helical structures with switchable and hierarchical chirality

Huijuan Feng

Chirality is present as a trend of research in biological and chemical communities for it has a significant effect on physiological properties and pharmacological effects. Further, manipulating specific morphological chirality recently has emerged as a pro ...

AMER INST PHYSICS2020

Bio-inspired design and validation of the Efficient Lockable Spring Ankle (ELSA) prosthesis

Mohamed Bouri, Renaud Ronsse, François André Heremans, Bruno Dehez

Over the last decade, active lower-limb prostheses demonstrated their ability to restore a physiological gait for transfemoral amputees by supplying the required positive energy balance during daily life locomotion activities. However, the added-value of s ...

IEEE2019

Soft And Wearable Transducers: Opportunities And Challenges For Daily Use

Stéphanie Lacour

Soft bioelectronic interfaces are broadly defined as microfabricated devices, distributed over large-areas, and with mechanical properties suited to comply the soft and dynamic biological tissues. The hybrid integration and processing of materials ranging ...

IEEE2019

Bio-inspired standing balance controller for a full-mobilization exoskeleton

Auke Ijspeert, Mohamed Bouri, Jemina Fasola, Tristan Hubert Vouga, Romain Pierre François Baud

This paper presents a novel method to perform automatic standing balance in a full mobilization exoskeleton. It exploits the locked ankle and the curved foot sole of the exoskeleton TWIICE. The idea is to use the knees to roll the sole and change the posit ...

IEEE2019

Shared human–robot proportional control of a dexterous myoelectric prosthesis

Aude Billard, Silvestro Micera, Vincent Alexandre Mendez, Fiorenzo Artoni, Francesco Maria Petrini, Nicolas Sommer, Edoardo D'Anna, Emanuele Formento, Saurav Aryan, Katie Zhi Zhuang

Myoelectric prostheses allow users to recover lost functionality by controlling a robotic device with their remaining muscle activity. Such commercial devices can give users a high level of autonomy, but still do not approach the dexterity of the intact hu ...

2019

Benchmarking Agility For Multilegged Terrestrial Robots

Auke Ijspeert, Peter Eckert

In this paper, we present a novel and practical approach for benchmarking agility. We focus on terrestrial, multilegged locomotion in the field of bio-inspired robotics. We define agility as the ability to perform a set of different but specific tasks exec ...

2019

A portable three-degrees-of-freedom force feedback origami robot for human-robot interactions

Jamie Paik, Stefano Mintchev, Marco Salerno, Alexandre Thierry Cherpillod, Simone Scaduto

Haptic interfaces can recreate the experience of touch and are necessary to improve human-robot interactions. However, at present, haptic interfaces are either electromechanical devices eliciting very limited touch sensations or devices that may provide mo ...

SPRINGERNATURE2019