Bionics research

The first Cybathlon will be held in Switzerland in October 2016. It is a competition for athletes equipped with bionic devices (robotized prosthetic legs and arms, motorized wheelchairs, exoskeletons, bikes using electrical muscle stimulation and brain-computer interface races). This competition helps raise public awareness on the evolution of work on robotic assistive technology and strengthens exchanges between research teams. Among the French teams is ENS Lyon. This team will take part in the cycle race, with a bike that has electrical muscle stimulation, as well as the brain-computer interface race during which tetraplegic athletes steer their avatar during virtual races using brain signals. The team leader, Vince, will be one of the pilots. He has been tetraplegic since a bike accident, and is a physics researcher. He changed his research to technology, which can help handicapped people in their daily lives. He is training for the brain computer interface race with Amine, a postdoc researcher in physics. He is wearing an EEG helmet which enables his neuronal activity to be tracked. The team has to determine the signals that are the most perceptible and isolatable on the EEG so that a computer action can be attributed to an ÒorderÓ from the brain. (Photo by: BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)