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Neural Engineering and Human-Robot Systems

Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC), the leading rehabilitation hospital in the US, collaborate on innovative science and technology for rehabilitation and human augmentation. Faculty and students in Northwestern's Biomedical Engineering (BME) and Mechanical Engineering (ME) Departments work with researchers at RIC on the development of advanced prosthetics, brain-machine interfaces, and rehabilitation robotics.

Neural Engineering and Human-Robot Systems

Rat whiskers sense features

Graduate student Joe Solomon and Professor Mitra Hartmann showed that the bending moment measured at the base of artificial rat whiskers can be used to reconstruct three-dimensional spatial representations of the environment, or profiles of fluid flow.

Nature 443, 525 (5 October 2006)

RESEARCH AREAS (Linksopen in a new tab or window)

Dynamics, Control, Robotics, Neural engineering

Neural Engineering and Human-Robot Systems (Joint Mechanical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering, and The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) )
Robotics; human motion, human/robot interaction (Colgate, Lynch, Peshkin)
Neurobiology and biomechanics of active sensing behaviors (Hartmann)
Neuromechanics, neuroethology, robotics (MacIver)
Human movement; neurorehabilitation (Patton)

Nanotechnology & MEMS

Micro and nano mechanics (Espinosa)
Nano-scale biotic/abiotic systems (Ho)
Micro and Nano technology (Chang Liu)

Design, Manufacturing & Tribology

Design and control of manufacturing processes; instability analysis (Cao)
Design Optimization; design under uncertainty (Chen)
Machine tool dynamics and control; metal cutting processes (Ehmann)
Tribology; Thermoelastohydrodynamic lubrication (Wang)
Laboratory for Micromanufacturing Research and Education (Cao, Ehmann)

Fluid Mechanics

Fluid Dynamics and Materials Science (Davis)
Soft condensed matter (Hilgenfeldt)
Micro scale flows near charged interfaces (Ghosal)
Radiation transport; reliability and risk analysis (Lewis)
Contact-line physics; vorticity dynamics (Lichter)
Experimental Fluid Mechanics and Applications (Lueptow)
Combustion; nonlinear dynamics and pattern formation (Matkowsky)
Complex systems, dynamics of granular matter (Ottino)
Multiphase flows; nanoscale fluid dynamics; biological applications (Patankar)

Solid Mechanics

Quantitative nondestructive evaluation (Achenbach)
Computational mechanics; finite elements (Belytchko)
Mechanics of Advanced Materials (Brinson)
Applied Mechanics; Micromechanics (Daniel)
Engineering Mechanics (Keer)
Photoacoustics (Krishnaswamy)
Computational Nanotechnology; Multi-scale analysis and design (Wing Liu)
Fracture and inelastic behavior of solids, geomaterials (Rudnicki)

Research Centers

Center for Intelligent Processing of Composites
Center for Surface Engineering and Tribology
Center for Quality Engineering and Failure Prevention
Dynamics of Complex Systems in Science and Engineering