Collaborative Research: DARE: A Personalized Assistive Robotic System that assesses Cognitive Fatigue in Persons with Paralysis - Funded by National Science Foundation - NSF: 2022 - 2025 (Estimated)

My Role: Principle Investigator (October 2022 - Present)

Objective: With the advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence, assistive robotic systems have the potential to provide support and care to people with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). As robots become more widespread, like today’s mobile phones, assistive robots can play a significant role in assisting persons with disabilities at home, improving independence and everyday quality of life. The objective of this project is to design and develop an end-to-end personalized assistive robotic system, called iRCSA (Intelligent Robotic Cooperation for Safe Assistance), to recognize, assess, and respond to a human’s cognitive fatigue during human-robot cooperation. The focus of the system is on human-robot cooperative tasks where a human with SCI and a robot cooperate during daily tasks (e.g., cooking). Students who have experienced SCI will be involved in every stage of the project, to ensure the acceptability and usability of the proposed system. In addition to the significant impact of this research on the improvement of life independence for persons with disabilities, the project includes the development of new university courses for assistive technologies and summer school programs for K-12 students, so that students gain knowledge on robotics and assistive technologies for their prospective studies in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM).

Related Publications: [1][2]

Videos: [1]

PFI:BIC: iWork, a Modular Multi-Sensing Adaptive Robot-Based Service for Vocational Assessment, Personalized Worker Training and Rehabilitation - Funded by National Science Foundation - NSF: 2017 - 2021

My Role: Postdoctoral Research Fellow (August 2019 - July 2021)

Objective: Automation, foreign competition, and the increasing use of robots replacing human jobs stress the need for a major shift in vocational training practices to training for intelligent manufacturing environments, so-called "Industry 4.0". In particular, vocational safety training using the latest robot and other technologies is imperative, as thousands of workers lose their job or die on the job each year due to accidents, unforeseen injuries, and lack of appropriate assessment and training. The objective of this project is to build a smart robot-based vocational assessment and intervention system to assess the physical, cognitive, and collaboration skills of an industry worker while he/she performs manufacturing tasks in a simulated industry setting and collaborating with a robot to do a task. Data collected and analyzed come from sensors, wearables, and explicit user feedback measuring worker movements, eye gazes, errors made, performance delays, human-robot interactions, physiological metrics, and others, depending on the task.

Related publications: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Videos: [1] [2]

CHS: Large: Collaborative Research: Computational Science for Improving Assessment of Executive Function in Children - Funded by National Science Foundation - NSF: 2017 - 2021

My Role: Postdoctoral Research Fellow (August 2019 - July 2021)

Objective: The identification of cognitive impairments in early childhood provides the best opportunity for successful remedial intervention, because brain plasticity diminishes with age. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a psychiatric neurodevelopmental disorder that is very hard to diagnose or tell apart from other disorders. Symptoms include inattention, hyperactivity, or acting impulsively, all of which often result in poor performance in school and persist later in life. In this project, an interdisciplinary team of computer and neurocognitive scientists will develop and implement transformative computational approaches to evaluate the cognitive profiles of young children and to address these issues. The project will take advantage of both physical and computer based exercises already in place in 300 schools in the United States and involving thousands of children, many of whom have been diagnosed with ADHD or other learning disabilities. Project outcomes will have important implications for a child's success in school, self-image, and future employment and community functioning. The PIs will discover new knowledge about the role of physical exercise in cognitive training, including correlations between individual metrics and degree of improvement over time. They will identify important new metrics and correlations currently unknown to cognitive scientists, which will have broad impact on other application domains as well. And the PIs will develop an interdisciplinary course on computational cognitive science and one on user interfaces for neurocognitive experts. Find out more about the Activate Test of Embodied Cognition (ATEC) system. 

Related publications: [1] [2] [3] [4]

MobILe Physical Human-Robot-Interaction for Independent Living (in German: Physische Mensch-Roboter-Interaktion für ein selbstbestimmtes Leben) - Funded by National German Federal Ministry of Education and Research - BMBF: 2017-2020 

My Role: Research Associate  (July 2017 - December 2018)

Objective: The goal of the MobILe project is the research and realization of basic skills with and without direct physical contact between robot and human. For robot control in three-dimensional space, humans use head and eye movements, which are recorded via a headset with movement sensors or glasses with eye tracker and electrooculography. Augmented reality (e.g. in the form of visual representations of the robot's intended actions) is used to interact with humans. The user-centered interaction design minimizes loss of attention. A safety system with redundancies ensures functional safety. In the case of basic physical contact skills, new control strategies are used to ensure that the interaction is carried out until a clear override order is issued.

Related publications: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]