He (Helen) Huang
- Email: hhuang11@ncsu.edu
- Office: 4402D Engineering Building III
- Website: https://bme.unc.edu/peoples/he-helen-huang/
To achieve this overarching goal, her current research focuses on understanding how limb amputees and robotic prostheses interact with each other and their environments and development of advanced control for robotic prostheses, which are adaptive, efficient, and safe, in order to restore the motor function in individuals with limb amputations. Three research thrusts have been formulated in my lab:
Thrust 1: Investigation of neuromuscular control and sensorimotor integration in limb amputees and development of neural-machine interfaces for neural control of robotic prosthetic limbs
Thrust 2: Investigation of wearer-machine co-adaptation and development of optimal adaptive control for robotic prostheses that provide personalized assistance and can adapt to changes in wearers and environments.
Thrust 3: Investigation of error correction and tolerance in human-machine symbiotic (HMS) systems and development of fault tolerant control for robotic prosthetic legs to improve the wearer’s stability and safety
*For current projects and open opportunities, check our lab or CLEAR websites
Research Interests
Wearable robotics
Neural-machine interface
Robotic prosthetics and exoskeleton
Optimal adaptive control
Human-robot interaction
Publications
- A Lightweight Robotic Lower-Limb Prosthesis With Unified Knee and Ankle Actuators
- Haque, M. R., Hong, W., Shetty, V. V., Dodson, A., Nalam, V., Huang, H., & Shen, X. (2026, January 6), Journal of Medical Devices. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4070781
- Data from: Projecting the new body: How body image evolves during learning to walk with a wearable robot
- Lee, I.-C., Min, H., Liu, M., & Huang, H. (2026), Open MIND, Vol. 1. https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.6hdr7srf6
- Efficient and Scalable Tuning of Continuous Impedance Control for Powered Knee Prostheses
- Hong, W., Naseri, A., & Huang, H. (2026, February 27), IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, Vol. 1. https://doi.org/10.1109/lra.2026.3668449
- Projecting the new body: How body image evolves during learning to walk with a wearable robot
- Lee, I.-C., Min, H., Liu, M., & Huang, H. (2026, February 1), (L. Kavraki, Ed.). PNAS Nexus. https://doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag016
- Towards adaptive optimal personalization control of robotic hip exoskeleton assistance for individuals with paretic stroke
- Zhang, Q., Chen, Y., Lewek, M., Si, J., & Huang, H. (2026, January 1), IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, Vol. 1. https://doi.org/10.1109/tbme.2026.3685273
- Virtual Reality as a Platform for Upper-Limb Prosthetic Control Modes Evaluation and Early-Stage Design
- Liu, Y., Park, J., Delgado, D., Music, A., Berman, J., Ruiz, J., … Zahabi, M. (2026, January 1), IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering. https://doi.org/10.1109/tnsre.2026.3652083
- A novel approach to assess coordination in people with transtibial amputations using continuous and event relative phase
- Mituniewicz, A. L., Nalam, V., & Huang, H. H. (2025, January 10), Journal of Biomechanics, Vol. 181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbiomech.2025.112522
- Addressing Human–Robot Symbiosis via Bilevel Optimization of Robotic Knee Prosthesis Control
- Liu, W., Nalam, V., Si, J., & Huang, H. (2025, November 18), IEEE Transactions on Robotics. https://doi.org/10.1109/tro.2025.3634368
- An Offline Reinforcement Learning-Based Auto-Tuning Framework for Continuous Impedance Control in Powered Prostheses
- Hong, W., Alili, A., & Huang, H. H. (2025, May 12), 2025 International Conference On Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR), pp. 1829–1834. https://doi.org/10.1109/icorr66766.2025.11063218
- Autonomous Slip-Prevention Grip Force Control and Its Potential in Shared Control of Robotic Prosthetic Hands
- Berman, J., Nalam, V., Yin, J., & Huang, H. (2025, December 15), IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics. https://doi.org/10.1109/tmrb.2025.3644009
