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Seminars in "villa Bonino" |
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Seminars in "villa Bonino" |
February 10th 2pm "auletta di rappresentanza 1 piano"
Speaker: Florin Popescu
Title: Mechanical, spinal and cortical contributions to stable reaching and manipulation
Abstract:
Ever since the work of Bernstein, it is commonly assumed that reaching is
computationally difficult and that muscle properties and spinal innervations are
tuned to facilitate computations for reaching and manipulation. Yet, robots
today can perform inverse dynamics calculations much better than humans, while
remaining decidedly inferior to humans in the capacity for cognitively guiding
manipulation. Dr. Popescu will review some of his work showing that 'distal'
properties are not sufficiently elastic to facilitate reaching. Further data
shows that reaching stability needs significant cortically-mediated reaction,
diminishing one purported advantage of the Equilibrium Point Hypothesis, that it
is inherently stable. He will then argue for the need of a comprehensive theory
of manipulation which grants a central role to cortical structures and
cognition, explained by evolution, anatomy and behavior, and give some examples
of already proposed theories of this flavor.
Dr. Popescu performed his graduate work at Northwestern University and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. He is currently a post-doctoral fellow at Istituti Ortopedici Rizzoli in Bologna.