[2603.20885] Characterizing the onset and offset of motor imagery during passive arm movements induced by an upper-body exoskeleton

Computer Science > Robotics arXiv:2603.20885 (cs) [Submitted on 21 Mar 2026] Title:Characterizing the onset and offset of motor imagery during passive arm movements induced by an upper-body exoskeleton Authors:Kanishka Mitra, Frigyes Samuel Racz, Satyam Kumar, Ashish D. Deshpande, José del R. Millán View a PDF of the paper titled Characterizing the onset and offset of motor imagery during passive arm movements induced by an upper-body exoskeleton, by Kanishka Mitra and 4 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Two distinct technologies have gained attention lately due to their prospects for motor rehabilitation: robotics and brain-machine interfaces (BMIs). Harnessing their combined efforts is a largely uncharted and promising direction that has immense clinical potential. However, a significant challenge is whether motor intentions from the user can be accurately detected using non-invasive BMIs in the presence of instrumental noise and passive movements induced by the rehabilitation exoskeleton. As an alternative to the straightforward continuous control approach, this study instead aims to characterize the onset and offset of motor imagery during passive arm movements induced by an upper-body exoskeleton to allow for the natural control (initiation and termination) of functional movements. Ten participants were recruited to perform kinesthetic motor imagery (MI) of the right arm while attached to the robot, simultaneously cued with LEDs indicating the initia...