Development of exoskeletal robotic limbs for a rat controlled by neural signals based on a vehicular neuro-robotic platform RatCar

A pair of exoskeletal limbs for a rat has been developed based on a vehicular Brain-Machine Interface “Rat-Car”. The “RatCar” is a whole-body motor prosthesis system for a rat developed by the authors, estimating locomotion velocity according to neural signals pattern to move the rat body by the vehicle instead of its original limbs. In this paper, exoskeletal limbs have displaced the wheels for more natural modality of body control. The system was tested by applying peripheral nerve signals from a behaving rat.

I. Introduction

Brain-machine interfaces (BMI) provide a new modality for communications and devices control. A number of applications are tested on human beings using non-invasive recordings from brains such as the electroencephalogram (EEG). On the other hand, direct extracellular potential recordings have been developed to extract more precise motor commands since Chapin et al [1] controlled a robotic arm using neural signals from the primary motor cortex of a rat.