An Exploratory Multi-Session Study of Learning High-Dimensional Body-Machine Interfacing for Assistive Robot Control

Individuals who suffer from severe paralysis often lose the capacity to perform fundamental body movements and everyday activities. Empowering these individuals with the ability to operate robotic arms, in high-dimensions, helps to maximize both functional utility and human agency. However, high-dimensional robot teleoperation currently lacks accessibility due to the challenge in capturing high-dimensional control signals from the human, especially in the face of motor impairments. Body-machine interfacing is a viable option that offers the necessary high-dimensional motion capture, and it moreover is noninvasive, affordable, and promotes movement and motor recovery. Nevertheless, to what extent body-machine interfacing is able to scale to high-dimensional robot control, and whether it is feasible for humans to learn, remains an open question. In this exploratory multi-session study, we demonstrate the feasibility of human learning to operate a body-machine interface to control a complex, assistive robotic arm in reaching and Activities of Daily Living tasks. Our results suggest the manner of control space mapping, from interface to robot, to play a critical role in the evolution of human learning.