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Biomedical Engineering Research Seminar

Joshua Schultz

University of Tulsa

Abstract

Walking on two legs is one of the defining features that distinguishes humans as a species from the other animals. Until recent times, robotic systems could not walk reliably for any length of time. There are two major reasons for this: first, the sheer complexity of the means by which this behavior is produced defies the capacity of the human mind to keep track of, and second, the technological challenges involved in building a machine that can physically walk. Historically, researchers have had to skirt two monsters more dangerous than any Odysseus ever faced. Abstraction is appealing, because it represents the essence of walking behavior with a small number of variables in a way that can be grasped by intuition. However, these abstractions are brittle and methods based on them can't always cope with real-world phenomena humans experience every day. On the other hand, anatomically-inspired approaches promise a ready guide, yet the sheer number of muscles involved leads to dimensionalities that can't be visualized or predicted well, and numbers of parts that are not technically feasible. In this talk, Dr. Schultz will discuss how his team at The University of Tulsa is trying to navigate this treacherous landscape and produce new methods for mechanical walking machines, and lower limb rehabilitation methods.

Bio

Joshua Schultz is the director of the Biological Robotics At Tulsa (BRAT) Research Group, and an affiliated faculty member of the University of Tulsa Institute for Robotics and Autonomy at The University of Tulsa. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. His group is active in bipedal walking, rehabilitation robotics, robotic grasping and manipulation, soft robotics, and actuation methods inspired by human physiology. He is an Achievement Rewards for College Scientists Scholar, and has been Technical Editor for ASME/IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics, and is a Senior Member of the IEEE. Dr. Schultz received his Ph.D. from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2012, an MS from Vanderbilt University in 2004, and a BSME degree from Tufts University in 2002. Prior to joining The University of Tulsa, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Advanced Robotics Department at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia. He is originally from New England.

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