MIE’s Meghan Huber Receives NSF CAREER Award
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Meghan Huber, assistant professor of mechanical and industrial engineering, has been awarded a grant from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) prestigious Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program. The CAREER Program is a foundation-wide activity that offers NSF awards in support of early career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.
Through this award, Huber will receive $650,866 for five years to study how people learn to walk using wearable robotic exoskeletons, ultimately as a means of improving mobility in aging populations or those with neurological injury. “There’s been this explosion of exoskeleton technology because we have better actuators now and our batteries are lighter. But now the big question is: How do you make them effective and useful for humans?’ This higher question of ‘how do humans learn to cooperate and work with physical systems that have artificial intelligence’ — it’s something that we don’t know.”
Huber will study the fundamental learning process of using new, robotic exoskeleton technology. “Armed with that information, then we can design robotic exoskeletons such that they adapt in such a way that they’re working with the human nervous system,” says Huber. She envisions future exoskeletons that can both adapt their mechanical assistance to the user while also providing feedback to the user on how best to work with the device.
Unlike traditional walking aids, robotic exoskeletons can personalize assistance based on each user’s needs and adapt over time. However, most current approaches focus only on optimizing the robot, not the human. Huber’s project addresses this gap by leveraging human neuromotor learning to improve human-robot collaboration.
As part of the project, Huber will also train future researchers by hosting a regional locomotion research symposium, engaging students in hands-on human-robot interaction projects, and raising public awareness of robotic technologies for mobility enhancement.
As director of the Human Robot Systems Lab, Huber focuses on understanding how humans and robots can learn from the physical interactions with the world around them and with one another. She recently developed a unique robotic hip exoskeleton, designed as a training tool to improve walking function in stroke victims.