She is one of seven researchers who have received the prestigious awards. Offered by the Government Office for Science and administered by the Royal Academy of Engineering, the fellowships provide a vital link between academia and the intelligence community.

How humans can learn to control an extra robotic arm

Dr Noccaro’s project will investigate to what extent you can give yourself the extra hand you need, or in other words whether the human brain can learn how to move an extra arm together with its own. The research outcomes could be used to augment human abilities in daily life, in surgical environments when dealing with multiple laparoscopic tools, or to help limb-impaired people in controlling substitutive devices.

Dr Noccaro, Research Associate in Robotics for Neuroscience, at Newcastle University’s School of Engineering, said: “This fellowship represents an accomplishment of great significance for me. It is a huge recognition of my work and ideas’ value but most of all it gives me the means to start my independent research. I am truly excited and I look forward to starting this thrilling project!

“The project will apply our knowledge of human motor control to movement augmentation. It will study the extent to which people can learn movement augmentation and strategies that can boost such learnings. Then, it will test how helpful these abilities are in real life. This means firstly, executing complex actions beyond the well-controlled tasks usually set up in laboratory experiments, such as reaching a target. Secondly, it will require adapting the extra limb’s movement to environmental conditions, such as wind disturbing movement or the distortion of visual feedback provided by a mirror.”

The UK Intelligence Community (IC) Postdoctoral Research Fellowships are offered by the Government Office for Science to outstanding early career researchers. These Fellowships are designed to promote unclassified basic research in areas of interest to the intelligence, security and defence community. Each fellowship is capped at a maximum grant of £200,000 over a two-year period.

Adapted with thanks from the Royal Academy of Engineering.