Summary of the project

This study aims to establish fundamental technologies for equipping robots with the ability to “infer” how to provide movement assistance without causing discomfort to the user. Humans have the ability to intuitively “infer” the movement speed and level of force that are comfortable for others. By estimating physiological changes associated with discomfort from biosignals, we hypothesize that humanoid robots can be equipped with the ability to “infer” natural and comfortable assistive movements. To achieve this goal, we will identify and validate physiologically grounded biomarkers of discomfort through multimodal biosignal measurements in humans and non-human primates, and develop practical technologies* for estimating natural assistive movements. (*patent pending)

*Certain illustrations in this document were created with the assistance of generative AI.

Milestone by year 2028

Identifying cross-species biosignal-based biomarkers of discomfort in response to assistive movements provided by others in 2028

R&D Items

• [1] Examining the Association Between Discomfort with Assistive Movements and Sensory Gating
• [2] Development of an Algorithm for Estimating Sensory Gating
• [3] Developing an Algorithm to Directly Estimate Sensitivity to Discomfort with Assistive Movements

Performers

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