Seminar: Astronaut sensorimotor impairment and artificial gravity - Sept. 4
Torin Clark
Assistant Professor, Smead Aerospace
Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2019 | AERO 111 | 2:30 P.M.
Abstract: Modern crewed aerospace vehicles operate in challenging environments, leading to complex and often highly-automated vehicle system designs. My research focuses on understanding the capabilities and limitations of humans in these environments and developing and evaluating countermeasures to improvement performance and safety. Here, I will focus on two research projects. The first investigates the feasibility and efficacy of short-radius centrifugation to create artificial gravity for astronauts during long-duration missions.
A series of ground-based, human subject experiments are presented that use our Human Eccentric Rotator Device (HERD). Second, I will present on the development and validation of a novel ground-based analog for astronaut sensorimotor and neurovestibular impairment post-flight. The wheelchair head immobilization paradigm (WHIP) will be introduced and results from human subject testing presented. Finally, I will touch on other ongoing research projects using our crewed planetary landing simulator, computational modeling of human-vehicle control, and space habitat design.
Bio: Torin K. Clark is an Assistant Professor in the Smead Aerospace Engineering Sciences department and an investigator in the Bioastronautics Laboratory. Prior to joining CU in 2016, he completed his PhD in Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT as part of the Man Vehicle Laboratory (now the Human Systems Laboratory). He was a National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) First Award Fellow (postdoctoral fellow) at Harvard Medical School in the Jenks Vestibular Physiology Laboratory. His research focuses on the challenges that humans face during space exploration missions. Specifically, this includes astronaut biomedical issues, space human factors, human sensorimotor/vestibular function and adaptation, interaction of human-autonomous and human-robotic systems, mathematical models of spatial orientation perception, and human-in-the-loop experiments. Dr. Clark was previously a Charles Stark Draper Laboratory Fellow (2008-2013), the MIT Aero-Astro Boeing Fellow (2012-2013), and recently a Summer Faculty Research Fellow for the Office of Naval Research (2018).