Media Website for the Journal Paper Submission
Force-Feedback Interaction with a Neural Oscillator Model
For Robotic Music Performance using Human-Like Motor Programs

Edgar Berdahl, Claude Cadoz, and Nicolas Castagne
April 15th, 2011

Demo of subject test setup

One of the authors interacts with the nonlinear Large oscillator to show the dynamics. The
Large oscillator clearly limits the amplitude of the motion of the haptic
device. Also, it appears that its frequency of oscillation can be changed by varying
the mechanical (test subject) load, or when the test subject forces the device to move directly.

Simple example

On the right, a human musician conducts in 4 beats, receiving force-feedback from
a simulated neural oscillator, and on the left, a slave robot plays a musical
shaker using a human-like generalized motor program (GMP) approach.

Series of GMPs

In this case, the mass of the simulated neural oscillator is reduced, allowing the human conductor to
have unusually precise control of the tempo in realtime. Control with this low latency is not
possible with human musicians, so a new kind of music can be created. Indeed, at the end of
the example, the conductor even pulls the neural oscillator backward in time briefly.

More rapidly varying tempo

Two GMPs are repeated several times each with more rapid tempo variation.