Section: Research Program

Modelling and identification of the sensory-motor system

Participants : Mitsuhiro Hayashibe, Christine Azevedo Coste, David Guiraud, Philippe Poignet.

The literature on muscle modelling is vast, but most of research works focus separately on the microscopic and on the macroscopic muscle's functional behaviours. The most widely used microscopic model of muscle contraction was proposed by Huxley in 1957. The Hill-Maxwell macroscopic model was derived from the original model introduced by A.V. Hill in 1938. We may mention the most recent developments including Zahalak's work introducing the distribution moment model that represents a formal mathematical approximation at the sarcomere level of the Huxley cross-bridges model and the works by Bestel and Sorine (2001) who proposed an explanation of the beating of the cardiac muscle by a chemical control input connected to the calcium dynamics in the muscle cells, that stimulates the contractile elements of the model. With respect to this literature, our contributions are mostly linked with the model of the contractile element, through the introduction of the recruitment at the fibre scale formalizing the link between FES parameters, recruitment and Calcium signal path. The resulting controlled model is able to reproduce both short term (twitch) and long term (tetanus) responses. It also matches some of the main properties of the dynamic behaviour of muscles, such as the Hill force-velocity relationship or the instantaneous stiffness of the Mirsky-Parmley model. About integrated functions modelling such as spinal cord reflex loops or central pattern generator, much less groups work on this topic compared to the ones working on brain functions. Mainly neurophysiologists work on this subject and our originality is to combine physiology studies with mathematical modelling and experimental validation using our own neuroprostheses. The same analysis could be drawn with sensory feedback modelling. In this domain, our work is based on the recording and analysis of nerve activity through electro-neurography (ENG). We are interested in interpreting ENG in terms of muscle state in order to feedback useful information for FES controllers and to evaluate the stimulation effect. We believe that this knowledge should help to improve the design and programming of neuroprostheses. We investigate risky but promising fields such as intrafascicular recordings, area on which only few teams in North America (Canada and USA), and Denmark really work on. Very few teams in France, and none at Inria work on the peripheral nervous system modelling, together with experimental protocols that need neuroprostheses. Most of our Inria collaborators work on the central nervous system, except the spinal cord, (ODYSSEE for instance), or other biological functions (SISYPHE for instance). Our contributions concern the following aspects:

• Muscle modelling,

• Sensory organ modelling,

• Electrode nerve interface,

• High level motor function modelling,

• Model parameters identification.

We contribute both to the design of reliable and accurate experiments with a well-controlled environment, to the fitting and implementation of efficient computational methods derived for instance from Sigma Point Kalman Filtering.