Rehabilitation Robotics: Challenges in Design, Control, and Real Applications

In the last decade, research focused on rehabilitation robotics has progressed from proposing solutions for the clinical field to portable solutions adapted to the user’s requirements based on the disability and the rehabilitation training program. The evolution of the rehabilitation devices from bulky to wearable devices has been inspired by using novel techniques. For example, the use of biologically inspired actuators has made unnecessary the use of rigid supports, as the skeletal system can be used to that end; the application of synergies or motor primitives has led to a reduction in the number of actuators or to improve their control; the latest advances in modeling and simulation made possible to assess and control fatigue or to simulate the use of such devices out of a clinical environment. All these research achievements made real a new generation of portable rehabilitation devices.

The proposed Research Topic invites theoretical and experimental results dealing with novel techniques for the design, simulation, and sensing and control systems for rehabilitation devices such as powered exoskeletons, neuroprostheses, and other rehabilitation devices that allow the rehabilitation environment to be moved out of the clinical setting.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Mechanical design of rehabilitation devices.
• Movement simulation while using such devices
• Application of synergies to the design and control
• Applications of assistive devices for human augmentation in other fields
• Long-term adjustment of exoskeleton assistance over extended use, i.e., increasing or decreasing assistive levels or differing control modes as someone’s capability improves or declines