Human Robot Systems Lab

The Human Robot Systems (HRS) Laboratory is part of the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Our mission is to advance how humans and robots learn to guide the physical interactive behavior of one another. To achieve this, our research aims to:

(1) develop new methods of describing human motor behavior that are compatible for robot control, (2) understand and improve how humans learn models of robot behavior, and (2) develop robot hardware and controllers to enhance human-robot physical interaction.

This highly interdisciplinary research lies at the intersection of robotics, dynamics, controls, human neuroscience, and biomechanics.

Current Robot and Machine Designs

UMILL/HRSL Variable Stiffness Treadmill

HRSL/Kearney Lab BioClockBot

HRSL Hip Exoskeleton

HRSL/DARoS Mobile Body Motion Capture System

HRSL/UMILL Variable Compliance Shoes

Most Recent Publications

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Price, Mark, Meghan E. Huber, and Wouter Hoogkamer. "Minimum effort simulations of split-belt treadmill walking exploit asymmetry to reduce metabolic energy expenditure." Journal of Neurophysiology (Accepted 2023).

Visit https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.15.503979v1 External Site

Abdikadirova, B., Price, M., Jaramillo, J. M., Hoogkamer, W., & Huber, M. E. (2023, May). Bilateral asymmetric hip stiffness applied by a robotic hip exoskeleton elicits kinematic and kinetic adaptation. In 2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) (Accepted). IEEE.

Visit https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.02.06.527337v1.abstract External Site

West Jr, A. M., Huber, M. E., & Hogan, N. (2022). Role of path information in visual perception of joint stiffness. PLOS Computational Biology, 18(11), e1010729.

Visit https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010729 External Site

Price, M., Abdikadirova, B., Locurto, D., Jaramillo, J. M., Cline, N., Hoogkamer, W., & Huber, M. E. (2022, October). Unilateral stiffness modulation with a robotic hip exoskeleton elicits adaptation during gait. In 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (pp. 12275-12281). IEEE.

Visit https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9981067 External Site

Lee, J., Huber, M.E., & Hogan, N. (2022). Gait entrainment to torque pulses from a hip exoskeleton robot. IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, 30: 656-667.

Visit https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9733793 External Site