Talk: Improving Shared Embodiment between Humans and Robots with Haptics

Lunch will be provided for those attending in-person, please use this form to RSVP. 

Robots are becoming important to enable people in their work and daily life, such as in assistive and performance enhancing devices like prosthetics and exoskeletons, and in teleoperating remote agents to complete tasks in remote or dangerous locations. The communication between people and their robotic devices must be intuitive and responsive in order to be effective. My research interests can be summarized by user-centric design in instances of shared embodiment. These examples demonstrate shared embodiment through shared kinematics in exoskeletons, a joint body in prosthetics, and use as an avatar in teleoperation. My work focuses on utilizing the sense of touch for human-robot communication, acknowledging the important role of haptic information in navigating our environment.

In this talk, I will discuss my work in two areas. The first is in the design and integration of haptic devices in human-robot systems. This leads to the second, addressing a bottleneck in device saliency by combining methods from psychophysics and contact mechanics. Through my work I aim to create effective systems with intuitive control and haptic feedback in order to create more immersive and efficient interactions for the human utilizing robotic support.

Janelle Clark is an assistant professor in the UMBC Mechanical Engineering Department. She received her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering at Rice University, Houston, TX, USA in 2022 in the Mechatronics and Haptic Interfaces (MAHI) Lab and postdoctoral fellowship in the Human-Robot Interaction Laboratory in the Minor School of Computer Science at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Her research focuses on user-centric design and haptic interfaces for human-robot interactions in instances of shared embodiment, with application domains such as prosthetics, exoskeletons, teleoperation, and virtual reality. Her work combines principles from psychophysics, contact mechanics, robotics, hardware design, and controls to investigate physiological contributions to haptic perception and the creation of intuitive human-in-the-loop control systems.