Within this framework RBCS is organized in a number of laboratories addressing, each with its own specificities and investigation tools, topics like: learning and adaptation, multimodal perception and affordance, motor control and learning, natural and social interaction, attention and recognition. The three main streams of research are mapped into the following laboratories:
Study Humans: Human Behavior and Rehabilitation Labs
Research in this stream will focus on understanding aspects of human behavior and perception which, besides their scientific value, are essential for the implementation of complex behaviors in artificial systems and new motor rehabilitation devices. All the research aspects addressed have in common the goal of understanding not only the motor and/or perceptual “process” per as but also how the processes adapt, learn and develop as a consequence of interaction with the environment and other human beings.
Build Humanoids: Cognitive Humanoids Lab
The main focus of the Cognitive Humanoids Laboratory activities is in the implementation of models of cognition in robots of humanoid shape. This has the two-fold aim of i) furthering our understanding of brain functions and ii) realizing robot controllers that can learn and adapt from their mistakes.
Interaction and Interface: Interaction and Interface Labs
The main effort in this area will be devoted to the study of chronically implantable Brain Machine Communication devices in humans. In particular the main focus of this long term goal is to implement bidirectional and “ad-hoc” interfaces. By this we mean interfaces that can be adapted to the residual functional abilities and the morphology of individual patients (up to the shape of the “connector”) and that can support bidirectional flow of information between the nervous system and the artificial device.
