Pinar Onal

Building delightful robots to clean your home for you (YC W24)

• Engineered an innovative electromechanical system to provide haptic feedback enabling ankle-foot prosthesis users to perceive movement of the artificial foot. • Developed a computational framework in MATLAB for modeling neuromuscular coordination, integrating EMG and motion data using signal processing, NNMF and network modeling. • Conducted clinical validation studies with over 100 hours of testing on EMG-controlled ankle prostheses, generating valuable human factors data.

• Engineered an intention recognition system using LSTM and CNN-LSTM models for adaptive exoskeleton control. • Designed and executed human-subject experiments, integrating multimodal data acquisition for workplace task simulations. • Developed classification models for wrist motion recognition, optimizing channel reduction and accuracy through feature selection. • Mentored interns on experimental design, data analysis, and algorithm development, fostering a collaborative research environment.

• Designed an IMU-based ambulation speed estimator for an ankle-knee prosthesis, achieving less than a 5% error rate. • Developed a MATLAB script to estimate gait speed from prosthesis sensor data. • Validated the estimator through treadmill and OptoGait trials with participants with lower-limb amputation.

• Spearheaded development of a low-cost, bio-inspired robotic ankle prosthesis with biomimetic gait trajectory and novel inversion–eversion joint mechanism design. • Designed and prototyped the prosthesis using CAD modeling, tooling, and sensor integration (EMG, IMU, force), and implemented a finite-state machine controller on a microcontroller for gait phase detection and actuation control.

• Worked in a software development team for additive manufacturing software. • Developed 3D visualization for the manufacturing process in Python. • Assisted in setting up a metal 3D printing test environment, implementing sensors, and processing high-frequency data.

• Tutored robotics, coding, and 3D design classes for over 500 hours 7-17 years old children. • Created robotics and 3D design class curriculum. • Instructed ”Prosthetic Hand Design for Kids” workshop. • Social Responsibility Project HUB21 for Girls aims to encourage the young woman students to STEM and Entrepreneurship. Making special sessions with young woman students from Daruşşafaka Schools.

• Developed a multi-finger motion capture experiment platform using CAD, 3D printing, and Leap Motion sensors; processed 400+ datasets in MATLAB to evaluate tactile feedback mapping methods. • Designed and executed human-subject studies (n=9), performed data analysis resulting in a peer-reviewed publication on human haptic perception.

• Developed 5 new experiments for Twin Aviation Kit with their instruction documents. • Created 3 CAD models of experiment contents for Twin Autonomous Vehicle Kit.

Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State University.

Honor Roll Student