Shared Control of Bimanual Robotic Limbs With a Brain-Machine Interface for Self-Feeding

David A Handelman; Luke E Osborn; Tessy M Thomas; Andrew R Badger; Margaret Thompson; Robert W Nickl; Manuel A Anaya; Jared M Wormley; Gabriela L Cantarero; David McMullen; Nathan E Crone; Brock Wester; Pablo A Celnik; Matthew S Fifer; Francesco V Tenore

doi:10.3389/fnbot.2022.918001

Shared Control of Bimanual Robotic Limbs With a Brain-Machine Interface for Self-Feeding

Front Neurorobot. 2022 Jun 28:16:918001. doi: 10.3389/fnbot.2022.918001. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Research and Exploratory Development, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, MD, United States.
² Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States.
³ Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilition, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States.
⁴ National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States.
⁵ Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States.

Abstract

Advances in intelligent robotic systems and brain-machine interfaces (BMI) have helped restore functionality and independence to individuals living with sensorimotor deficits; however, tasks requiring bimanual coordination and fine manipulation continue to remain unsolved given the technical complexity of controlling multiple degrees of freedom (DOF) across multiple limbs in a coordinated way through a user input. To address this challenge, we implemented a collaborative shared control strategy to manipulate and coordinate two Modular Prosthetic Limbs (MPL) for performing a bimanual self-feeding task. A human participant with microelectrode arrays in sensorimotor brain regions provided commands to both MPLs to perform the self-feeding task, which included bimanual cutting. Motor commands were decoded from bilateral neural signals to control up to two DOFs on each MPL at a time. The shared control strategy enabled the participant to map his four-DOF control inputs, two per hand, to as many as 12 DOFs for specifying robot end effector position and orientation. Using neurally-driven shared control, the participant successfully and simultaneously controlled movements of both robotic limbs to cut and eat food in a complex bimanual self-feeding task. This demonstration of bimanual robotic system control via a BMI in collaboration with intelligent robot behavior has major implications for restoring complex movement behaviors for those living with sensorimotor deficits.

Keywords: activities of daily living (ADL); bimanual control; brain computer interface (BCI); human machine teaming; robotic shared control.