Soft Embodiment for Engineering Artificial Limbs.

Trends Cogn Sci

BioRobotics Institute and Department of Excellence in Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, viale Rinaldo Piaggio 34, 56025, Pontedera, Italy; Bertarelli Foundation Chair in Translational Neuroengineering, Center for Neuroprosthetics and Institute of Bioengineering, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.

Published: December 2020

We highlight two alternative, yet complementary, solutions for harnessing available neural resources for improving integration of artificial limbs (ALs) through embodiment. 'Hard' embodiment exploits neural and cognitive body mechanisms by closely mimicking their original biological functions. 'Soft' embodiment exploits these same mechanisms by recycling them to support a different function altogether.

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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2020.09.008DOI Listing

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