BIOMECHATRONICS LAB - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Researcher at the Biomecatronics Lab

Abhishek Kumar Ghosh is a PhD researcher at the Biomecatronics Lab, Imperial College London. His research involves the design and development of a non-invasive, cheap, wearable monitor to detect the fetal movements. He is a recipient of the prestigious Commonwealth PhD Scholarship awarded by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission UK. Previously, Abhishek completed his Bachelor and Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Christopher is a researcher in the Biomechatronics Lab in the Mechanical Engineering department at Imperial College London. He first carried out a funded summer research project with the group in 2015 working on a human-machine interface which combined motion and muscle activity sensing technologies to control a computer operating system and quadcopter. He continued this work for his master's project before securing his PhD studentship. Christopher graduated from Imperial College in October 2016 earning a first class MEng in Mechanical Engineering. Christopher is currently working on exoskeleton research as a member of the CDT in Neurotechnology, co-sponsored by The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and McLaren Applied Technologies through an Industrial Cooperative Award in Science and Technology. His current research is focused on developing exoskeletons for post-stroke rehabilitation. Christopher was selected as a protagonist for the Royal Academy of Engineering's This is Engineering campaign, which aims to change young people's perceptions of the engineering profession. Since joining the lab, Christopher has been involved in a number of public outreach activities, making media appearance on ITV News, BBC Click, and demonstrating at Imperial Festival. He is also a graduate teaching assistant in the department, tutoring Embedded C for Microcontrollers and Stress Analysis.

Job Titles:

• Research Associate at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Imperial College London

Weiguang Huo is a Research Associate at the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Imperial College London. He works with Dr Ravi Vaidyanathan to develop machine-learning-based methods to quantify Parkinson's disease symptoms using wearable sensors as well as control algorithms for lower-limb exoskeletons. He received his M.S. in Control Theory and Control Engineering in 2012 from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China, where he worked on control approaches of an upper-limb exoskeleton. He received his Ph.D. in Signal, Image and Automatic in 2016 from the University of Paris-Est, France, where worked on human-motion-intention based control algorithms for lower limb exoskeletons. Subsequently, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the same university until 2018. He focused on developing and clinically evaluating functional electrical stimulation (FES) algorithms for correcting the foot-drop of paretic patients. His research interests include human motion intention estimation, modelling and control of wearable robots, functional electrical stimulation, and machine learning.

Felix is an ex-PhD student in the Biomechatronics Lab in the Mechanical Engineering department of Imperial College London. He finished his mechanical engineering undergraduate degree at Imperial College in 2016. While he was there he worked on projects on development of an automated tracking camera for materials testing, fluid flow analogies for traffic jams and compliant ligaments within robotic joints. PhD: Felix's work follows on from his master's project on condylar knee designs. His work focuses on the design and testing of anthropomorphic mechanical models of the human knee joint. Included in the mechanical model are the compliant ligaments of the knee, the patella (knee cap) and smooth condyles (joint surfaces). Where possible geometries are been taken directly from studies on human anatomy. He aims to use the model to improve our understanding of the role of compliant ligaments in normal joint function, in particular their role in joint stability and control. In addition, the new technologies developed may be of interest in the development of better knee prosthetics or in walking robots. Specifically designs using a bio derived design may produce gait that looks more human and has lower energy consumption than current methods. Other work experience: Over the summer of 2014 he interned in the research and development department at Dyson. There he learned a lot from the experienced engineers there and the few months spent there cemented his interest in mechatronic design. At the end of the summer he was offered a graduate job with them (starting in 2016) and went back to work there for four weeks during the summer 2015. During his holidays and in term time weekends he has taught Arduino programming and electronics to classes of 10-16 year olds for www.techcamp.org.uk.

Sebastian is a researcher in the Bio-Mechatronics Laboratory in the Mechanical Engineering Department of Imperial College London. He is part of the Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Neurotechnology programme, which comprises a master's degree year followed by a PhD. During his master's he worked on haptic sensory substitution, developing a wearable force feedback device intended for prosthetic users during grasping tasks. Currently, Sebastian works on improvements providing acute tactile sensory feedback through mechanical surface stimulation to create a robust and cost-effective scheme able to be fused with implantable brain-robot interfaces for robotic control. His work will follow with a comprehensive analysis of electromyography and mechanomyography muscle activity response to determine an effective method of using these two muscle responses to complement each other's limitations. Considering the different features of each signal it would be possible to overcome the individual limitations of each one and expand the scope of current clinical applications.