User-Centered Evaluation of the Wearable Walker Lower Limb Exoskeleton; Preliminary Assessment Based on the Experience Protocol.

Using lower limb exoskeletons provides potential advantages in terms of productivity and safety associated with reduced stress. However, complex issues in human-robot interactions are still open, such as the physiological effects of exoskeletons and the impact on the user's subjective experience. In this work, an innovative exoskeleton, the , is assessed using the EXPERIENCE benchmarking protocol from the EUROBENCH project.

A Soft Hand Exoskeleton With a Novel Tendon Layout to Improve Stable Wearing in Grasping Assistance.

We present a novel soft exoskeleton providing active support for hand closing and opening. The main novelty is a different tendon routing, folded laterally on both sides of the hand, and adding clenching forces when the exoskeleton is activated. It improves the stability of the glove, diminishing slippage and detachment of tendons from the hand palm toward the grasping workspace.

A Mechanical Hand-Tracking System With Tactile Feedback Designed for Telemanipulation.

In this paper, we present a mechanical hand-tracking system with tactile feedback designed for fine manipulation in teleoperation scenarios. Alternative tracking methods based on artificial vision and data gloves have become an asset for virtual reality interaction. Yet, occlusions, lack of precision, and the absence of effective haptic feedback beyond vibrotactile still appear as a limit for teleoperation applications.

A randomized clinical control study on the efficacy of three-dimensional upper limb robotic exoskeleton training in chronic stroke.

Background: Although robotics assisted rehabilitation has proven to be effective in stroke rehabilitation, a limited functional improvements in Activities of Daily Life has been also observed after the administration of robotic training. To this aim in this study we compare the efficacy in terms of both clinical and functional outcomes of a robotic training performed with a multi-joint functional exoskeleton in goal-oriented exercises compared to a conventional physical therapy program, equally matched in terms of intensity and time. As a secondary goal of the study, it was assessed the capability of kinesiologic measurements-extracted by the exoskeleton robotic system-of predicting the rehabilitation outcomes using a set of robotic biomarkers collected at the baseline.

Angular Velocity Profiles of Upper Limb Joint Synergies in Reaching Movements: a pilot study.

The spatiotemporal kinematic synergy, a coupling of multiple degrees of freedom (DoF), runs through human activities of daily living (ADL). And it is an entry point for exploring the central nervous system's (CNS) control process of musculoskeletal system by analyzing the time-varying kinematic synergy. The aim of this study was to find more physiological properties from the angular velocity profiles of synergy.

How Many Muscles? Optimal Muscles Set Search for Optimizing Myocontrol Performance.

In myo-control, for computational and setup constraints, the measurement of a high number of muscles is not always possible: the choice of the muscle set to use in a myo-control strategy depends on the desired application scope and a search for a reduced muscle set, tailored to the application, has never been performed. The identification of such set would involve finding the minimum set of muscles whose difference in terms of intention detection performance is not statistically significant when compared to the original set. Also, given the intrinsic sensitivity of muscle synergies to variations of EMG signals matrix, the reduced set should not alter synergies that come from the initial input, since they provide physiological information on motor coordination.

A soft, synergy-based robotic glove for grasping assistance.

This paper presents a soft, tendon-driven, robotic glove designed to augment grasp capability and provide rehabilitation assistance for postspinal cord injury patients. The basis of the design is an underactuation approach utilizing postural synergies of the hand to support a large variety of grasps with a single actuator. The glove is lightweight, easy to don, and generates sufficient hand closing force to assist with activities of daily living.

Immersive Virtual Environments and Wearable Haptic Devices in rehabilitation of children with neuromotor impairments: a single-blind randomized controlled crossover pilot study.

Background: The past decade has seen the emergence of rehabilitation treatments using virtual reality. One of the advantages in using this technology is the potential to create positive motivation, by means of engaging environments and tasks shaped in the form of serious games. The aim of this study is to determine the efficacy of immersive Virtual Environments and weaRable hAptic devices (VERA) for rehabilitation of upper limb in children with Cerebral Palsy (CP) and Developmental Dyspraxia (DD).

Investigating muscle synergies changes after rehabilitation robotics training on stroke survivors: a pilot study.

The current knowledge about muscle synergies does not clearly explain how both rehabilitation and brain plasticity act on the way they evolve after a cortical stroke. In this preliminary study, the authors analyzed the correlation between healthy and affected muscle synergies and the way the latter change after rehabilitation, following the clinical scales scores changes. The aim was finding whether the patients were supposed to get the unimpaired synergies back or develop new synergies due to neural changes.

Continuous supplementary tactile feedback can be applied (and then removed) to enhance precision manipulation.

Background: Human sensorimotor control of dexterous manipulation relies on afferent sensory signals. Explicit tactile feedback is generally not available to prosthetic hand users, who have to rely on incidental information sources to partly close the control loop, resulting in suboptimal performance and manipulation difficulty. Recent studies on non-invasive supplementary sensory feedback indicated that time-discrete vibrational feedback delivered upon relevant mechanical events outperforms continuous tactile feedback.

Compact Series Visco-Elastic Joint (SVEJ) for Smooth Torque Control.

The design and control of a new series-viscous-elastic joint are presented. The proposed joint consists of 3D printed parts compressing nonlinear elastic silicone springs. The use of silicone springs is the main novelty of the system; they exhibit internal damping, which enhances system performance allowing a simpler and more stable control.

Kinematic Synergy of Multi-DoF Movement in Upper Limb and Its Application for Rehabilitation Exoskeleton Motion Planning.

It is important for rehabilitation exoskeletons to move with a spatiotemporal motion patterns that well match the upper-limb joint kinematic characteristics. However, few efforts have been made to manipulate the motion control based on human kinematic synergies. This work analyzed the spatiotemporal kinematic synergies of right arm reaching movement and investigated their potential usage in upper limb assistive exoskeleton motion planning.

Haptic Stimulation for Improving Training of a Motor Imagery BCI Developed for a Hand-Exoskeleton in Rehabilitation.

The use of robotic devices to provide active motor support and sensory feedback of ongoing motor intention, by means of a Brain Computer Interface (BCI), has received growing support by recent literature, with particular focus on neurorehabilitation therapies. At the same time, performance in the use of the BCI has become a more critical factor, since it directly influences congruency and consistency of the provided sensory feedback. As motor imagery is the mental simulation of a given movement without depending on residual function, training of patients in the use of motor imagery BCI can be extended beyond each rehabilitation session, and practiced by using simpler devices than rehabilitation robots available in the hospital.

On the edge between soft and rigid: an assistive shoulder exoskeleton with hyper-redundant kinematics.

In this paper, we present a prototype of an innovative portable shoulder exoskeleton for human assistance and augmentation. The device provides torques to flexion/extension movements of the shoulder, compensating for gravitational forces, and is passively compliant along the remaining degrees of freedom letting the shoulder moving along them. The novelty of our system is a flexible link, made of a hyper-redundant passive structure, that avoids joint misalignment by adapting to the complex movements of the humerus head, similarly to a soft component.

Design Requirements of Generic Hand Exoskeletons and Survey of Hand Exoskeletons for Rehabilitation, Assistive, or Haptic Use.

Most current hand exoskeletons have been designed specifically for rehabilitation, assistive, or haptic applications to simplify the design requirements. Clinical studies on poststroke rehabilitation have shown that adapting assistive or haptic applications into physical therapy sessions significantly improves the motor learning and treatment process. The recent technology can lead to the creation of generic hand exoskeletons that are application-agnostic.

Physiological and kinematic effects of a soft exosuit on arm movements.

Background: Soft wearable robots (exosuits), being lightweight, ergonomic and low power-demanding, are attractive for a variety of applications, ranging from strength augmentation in industrial scenarios, to medical assistance for people with motor impairments. Understanding how these devices affect the physiology and mechanics of human movements is fundamental for quantifying their benefits and drawbacks, assessing their suitability for different applications and guiding a continuous design refinement.

Methods: We present a novel wearable exosuit for assistance/augmentation of the elbow and introduce a controller that compensates for gravitational forces acting on the limb while allowing the suit to cooperatively move with its wearer.

A Linear Approach to Optimize an EMG-Driven Neuromusculoskeletal Model for Movement Intention Detection in Myo-Control: A Case Study on Shoulder and Elbow Joints.

The growing interest of the industry production in wearable robots for assistance and rehabilitation purposes opens the challenge for developing intuitive and natural control strategies. Myoelectric control, or myo-control, which consists in decoding the human motor intent from muscular activity and its mapping into control outputs, represents a natural way to establish an intimate human-machine connection. In this field, model based myo-control schemes (e.

An Orthopaedic Robotic-Assisted Rehabilitation Method of the Forearm in Virtual Reality Physiotherapy.

The use of robotic rehabilitation in orthopaedics has been briefly explored. Despite its possible advantages, the use of computer-assisted physiotherapy of patients with musculoskeletal injuries has received little attention. In this paper, we detailed the development and evaluation of a robotic-assisted rehabilitation system as a new methodology of assisted physiotherapy in orthopaedics.

Wearable Haptics and Immersive Virtual Reality Rehabilitation Training in Children With Neuromotor Impairments.

The past decade has seen the emergence of rehabilitation treatments using virtual reality (VR) environments although translation into clinical practice has been limited so far. In this paper, an immersive VR rehabilitation training system endowed with wearable haptics is proposed for children with neuromotor impairments: it aims to enhance involvement and engagement of patients, to provide congruent multi-sensory afferent feedback during motor exercises and to benefit from the flexibility of VR in adapting exercises to the patient's need. An experimental rehabilitation session conducted with children with cerebral palsy (CP) and developmental dyspraxia (DD) has been performed to evaluate the usability of the system and proof of concept trial of the proposed approach.

Integration of serious games and wearable haptic interfaces for Neuro Rehabilitation of children with movement disorders: A feasibility study.

The past decade has seen the emergence of rehabilitation treatments using virtual reality environments. One of the advantages in using this technology is the potential to create positive motivation, by means of engaging environments and tasks shaped in the form of serious games. In this work, we propose a novel Neuro Rehabilitation System for children with movement disorders, that is based on serious games in immersive virtual reality with haptic feedback.

Online adaptive assistance control in robot-based neurorehabilitation therapy.

Repetitive and task specific robot-based rehabilitation has been proved to be effective for motor recovery over time. During a therapy, the task should improve subject's impaired movements, but also enhance their efforts for a more effective recovery. This requires an accurate tuning of the task difficulty, which should be tailored directly to the patient.

Effects of Continuous Kinaesthetic Feedback Based on Tendon Vibration on Motor Imagery BCI Performance.

Background And Objectives: Feedback plays a crucial role for using brain computer interface systems. This paper proposes the use of vibration-evoked kinaesthetic illusions as part of a novel multisensory feedback for a motor imagery (MI)-based BCI and investigates its contributions in terms of BCI performance and electroencephalographic (EEG) correlates.

Methods: sixteen subjects performed two different right arm MI-BCI sessions: with the visual feedback only and with both visual and vibration-evoked kinaesthetic feedback, conveyed by the stimulation of the biceps brachi tendon.

Wearable Haptic Systems for the Fingertip and the Hand: Taxonomy, Review, and Perspectives.

In the last decade, we have witnessed a drastic change in the form factor of audio and vision technologies, from heavy and grounded machines to lightweight devices that naturally fit our bodies. However, only recently, haptic systems have started to be designed with wearability in mind. The wearability of haptic systems enables novel forms of communication, cooperation, and integration between humans and machines.

New generation emerging technologies for neurorehabilitation and motor assistance.

This paper illustrates the application of emerging technologies and human-machine interfaces to the neurorehabilitation and motor assistance fields. The contribution focuses on wearable technologies and in particular on robotic exoskeleton as tools for increasing freedom to move and performing Activities of Daily Living (ADLs). This would result in a deep improvement in quality of life, also in terms of improved function of internal organs and general health status.