The KINARM is a robotic exoskeleton, by BKIN Technologies, used by neuroscientists all over the world. It is used to study the relationship between neuronal activity in the motor cortex of a primate, and the resulting motion of an arm of the primate. The primate may be a rhesus monkey with a cortical implant, or a human subject undergoing neurological analysis. As part of a computational neuroscience collaboration with Dr. Nicho Hatsopoulos (U. Chicago) and Dr. Lee Miller (Northwestern University), Dr. Ojakangas developed the equations of motion for the complex machine, which is essentially a planar, two-degree-of-freedom arm (a double pendulum) with numerous additional articulated appendages. To his surprise, the makers of the KINARM requested to use his equations. They had not derived them themselves, at that time. Although he did not receive pay for his contribution, Ojakangas is mentioned in the User Manual for the KINARM, as shown in the image below (right). Ojakangas’ equations are shown in the body of page 107 of the manual (see below).
