Research Interests

Jim Patton
I am part of the Robotics Group at one of the Rehabilitation institute of Chicago’s research units, called the Sensory-motor Performance Program.
[click here to go the robotics lab web page]

Be a subject!
Help science crawl forward! My group is often looking for research subjects. Send an email if interested.

Interests:

rOBOTIC nEUROREHABILITAtion: We are currently focusing on stroke recovery and how robots can be used to improve reaching performance. My methods involve dynamic modeling, optimization, robotics, and adaptive control.
Motor Learning & rOBOTIC Teaching: How the central nervous system intelligently accommodates for environmental changes in stability when the body is moving? Developments in human-robot interactions (haptics) have revealed prospects in the areas of motor teaching and rehabilitation that could extend and greatly enhance the recovery process. Can we exploit what we know about the natural adaptive capacity of the nervous system to teach new motions? Recent advances in custom-designed force fields, error augmentation, and sensory-crossover have truly identified robot and virtual reality tools as devices that can speed up learning and facilitate motor recovery.
Modeling the motor deficits of Stroke: Modeling the motor deficits allows us to understand the disability better. We exploit what we know to design rehabilitative training.
Bimanual coordination in motor Learning How well can you perform a task with right hand that you learned on your left? What about both hands? Can this process be altered by different factors? These issues have great significance to rehabilitation.
dEVELOPING DEVICES: Many questions cannot be answered because of limitations in our devices. We need devices with more strength, range of motion and mobility that preserve the backdrivability, safety, and ease of programming that we currently have. This is especially true in neurorehabilitation, where people need to train in doing task-oriented activities such as reaching for a object in the cupboard. We are exploring robotic technology that will embrace new developments in robotics and virtual displays, a new type of transmission for delivering torque to a limb, and a walking device that allows the therapist to be more productive by not needing to worry about the patient falling. This latter device, the Kine-Assist is in partnership with the startup-company Chicago PT. A new mechanical transmission for delivering torque to a limb is being developed in partnership with the Northwestern University Mechanical Engineering department’s Laboratory for Intelligent Mechanical Systems (LIMS). This lightweight design uses cables and the rigidity of the human skeleton to perform robotic manipulation of the arm. This should result in an inexpensive and versatile robotic tool useful for both walking and arm applications in motor control experiments, rehabilitation, and orthotics.
Telemanipulation Teleoperation is becoming much more important in the areas of rehabilitation, surgery, telemedicine, remote-controlled hazardous materials handling, tele-reconnaissance, and remote-controlled search and rescue. Yet, we know very little about how the nervous system copes with the challenges that confront the teleoperator. In a study supported by the US/ISRAEL Binational Science Foundation, we are investigating how delay influences the control of movement in force-feedback situations. We are also developing robot-facilitated teaching applications that can speed up the learning of the difficult transformations that a teleoperator often needs to learn.
Stability Limits: How do neuro-mechanical constraints influence the way we move? This figure is the "feasible state-torque-space" for a an inverted pendulum controlled by joint torque. It depicts the feasible volume in position (Horizontal axis), velocity (Into page), and torque (Vertical axis). State-torque combinations inside this volume are where one can accomplish balanced activity. For details about what the heck I'm talking about, and applications of this "football," see Patton et al, 1999 and other references.   If you are interested in the code that will generate the stability boundaries [Pai and Patton (97)], you can download the code for MATLAB ver 5 or 6 or the code for MATLAB 7 or later in zip form, extract it to a new directory (i.e., "/stability_boundaries") and read directions.txt.  It's fun to watch.

VITA: (with links to publications) [HTML (WEB) version] [PDF version]

Last updated 30-Nov-05  by Patton 
Information presented here is believed to be accurate and reliable but is not guaranteed and is subject to correction. 
Stinkers who dont like it can get their own web page. 
So there. 

Return to my home page