This study investigates whether adding ground compliance to visual feedback (VF) gait training is more effective at increasing push-off force (POF) compared to using VF alone, with implications for gait rehabilitation. Ten healthy participants walked on a custom split-belt treadmill. All participants received real-time visual feedback of their ground reaction forces. One group also experienced changes in ground compliance, while a control group received only visual feedback. Intentional increases in propulsive ground reaction forces (POF) were successfully achieved and sustained post-intervention, especially in the group that experienced ground compliance. This group also demonstrated lasting after-effects in muscle activity and joint kinematics, indicating a more robust learning of natural strategies to increase propulsion. This work demonstrates how visual and proprioceptive systems coordinate during gait adaptation. It uniquely shows that combining ground compliance with visual feedback enhances the learning of propulsive forces, supporting the potential use of compliant terrain in long-term rehabilitation targeting propulsion deficits, such as those following a stroke.

Due to hemiparesis, stroke survivors frequently develop a dysfunctional gait that is often characterized by an overall decrease in walking speed and a unilateral decrease in step length. With millions currently affected by this dysfunctional gait, robust and effective rehabilitation protocols are needed. Although robotic devices have been used in numerous rehabilitation protocols for gait, the lack of significant aftereffects that translate to effective therapy makes their application still questionable. This paper proposes a novel type of robot-assisted intervention that results in significant aftereffects that last much longer than any other previous study. With the utilization of a novel robotic device, the Variable Stiffness Treadmill (VST), the stiffness of the walking surface underneath one leg is decreased for a number of steps. This unilateral stiffness perturbation results in a significant aftereffect that is both useful for stroke rehabilitation and often lasts for over 200 gait cycles after the intervention has concluded. More specifically, the aftereffect created is an increase in both left and right step lengths, with the unperturbed step length increasing significantly more than the perturbed. These effects may be helpful in correcting two of the most common issues in post-stroke gait: overall decrease in walking speed and a unilateral shortened step length. The results of this work show that a robot-assisted therapy protocol involving repeated unilateral stiffness perturbations can lead to a more permanent and effective solution to post-stroke gait.

Humans must become cyborgs if they are to stay relevant in a future dominated by artificial intelligence. That was the warning from Tesla founder Elon Musk, speaking at an event in Dubai this weekend. Musk argued that as artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, it will lead to mass unemployment. "There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot can't do better," he said at the World Government Summit. If humans want to continue to add value to the economy, they must augment their capabilities through a "merger of biological intelligence and machine intelligence".

Humans must become cyborgs if they are to stay relevant in a future dominated by artificial intelligence. That was the warning from Tesla founder Elon Musk, speaking at an event in Dubai this weekend. Musk argued that as artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, it will lead to mass unemployment. "There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot can't do better," he said at the World Government Summit. If humans want to continue to add value to the economy, they must augment their capabilities through a "merger of biological intelligence and machine intelligence".

Humans must become cyborgs if they are to stay relevant in a future dominated by artificial intelligence. That was the warning from Tesla founder Elon Musk, speaking at an event in Dubai this weekend. Musk argued that as artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, it will lead to mass unemployment. "There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot can't do better," he said at the World Government Summit. If humans want to continue to add value to the economy, they must augment their capabilities through a "merger of biological intelligence and machine intelligence".

The brain is an electric organ, and its 86 billion neurons communicate via pulses of electricity. When a voltage change causes one neuron to "fire," it releases chemicals that trigger voltage changes in connected neurons. The brain's every operation, from automatic functions like maintaining a heartbeat to cognitive processes such as making sense of these words you are reading, can be understood as a flickering pattern of electrical activity, with neurons firing along specific pathways. A researcher at Arizona State University (my alma mater) has discovered how to control robots using the human brain. A controller wears a skullcap outfitted with 128 electrodes wired to a computer.

While we've previously seen crafty inventors fly drones with the assistance of devices like the Apple Watch or the Nintendo Power Glove, researcher Panagiotis Artemiadis is working on a technology that will take drone control to a whole new level. The scientist that heads the Human-Oriented Robotics and Control Lab at Arizona State University has come up with a way to control multiple drones using simply the power of your mind. To accomplish this, Artemiadis and his team have devised a special skullcap that connects your brain to a computer through 128 electrodes. The device then records electrical brain activity and proceeds to decipher and convert your thoughts to movements that the drone(s) can understand. Unlike joysticks that allow controlling only one drone at a time, this mind-control technology can handle up to 4 drones collectively.

There have been some amazing breakthroughs that enable humans to control a single machine with their thoughts. The next step is figuring out how to operate an entire fleet of robots with mind control. A team of researchers at Arizona State University's (ASU) Human-Oriented Robotics and Control Lab have developed a system for managing swarms of robots with brain power. There are some things that machines are simply better at doing than humans, but humans still have plenty going for them. Here's a look at how the two are going to work in concert to deliver a more powerful future for IT, and the human race.

Researchers at ASU used this skull cap with 128 electrodes to control three drones. Hopefully this never gets reverse-engineered by AI. Panagiotis Artemiadis, director of the Human-Oriented Robotics and Control Lab at Arizona State University, developed mind-controlled drone swarms by tracking electrical activity in the brain. When the cap-wearing human pictures the quadcopters doing a task, they respond. One person can control up to four drones this way, with the intention of eventually adding multiple people to control larger swarms.

A researcher at Arizona State University has discovered how to control multiple robotic drones using the human brain. A controller wears a skull cap outfitted with 128 electrodes wired to a computer. If the controller moves a hand or thinks of something, certain areas light up. "I can see that activity from outside," said Panagiotis Artemiadis (pictured above), director of the Human-Oriented Robotics and Control Lab and an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering. "Our goal is to decode that activity to control variables for the robots."