A common therapeutic approach for the rehabilitation of patients with hemiparesis involves repetitive voluntary movements with manual assistance from a therapist (“active-assist therapy”). We used a novel robotic device to deliver a controlled form of active-assist therapy in chronic stroke patients (N = 7). To examine the utility of direct mechanical assistance in rehabilitation of voluntary a...

As robotic systems become increasingly capable of complex sensory, motor and information processing functions, the ability to interact with them in an ergonomic, real-time and adaptive manner becomes an increasingly pressing concern. In this context, the physical characteristics of the robotic device should become less of a direct concern, with the device being treated as a system that receives...

Prior art Facial paralysis is a disability that can be caused by infections, accidents, strokes or tumors. There is “an emerging rehabilitation science of neuromuscular reeducation” [1] to help the patients with facial 10 paralysis restore their muscle activity. The therapy method for these patients is still very dependent on the therapist’s experience and even diagnosis remains to be subjectiv...

This article describes a software platform that allows to control multiple robots of any type, through wireless connections and without needing to modify its code to control each particular robot. It is a platform with an architecture in three layers, that uses the robotics device server Player as intermediate layer. The most abstract layer of the architecture is composed by the applications of...

Automation of cell microinjection greatly reduces operational difficulty, but cell fixation remains a challenge. Here, we describe an innovative device that solves the fixation problem without single-cell operation. The microarray cylinder is designed with a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) material surface to control the contact force between cells and the material. Data show that when the injectio...

With the increased use of specialized robots within heterogeneous robotic teams, as envisioned by DARPA's Tactical Mobile Robotics program, the task of dynamically assigning work to individual robots becomes more complex and critical to mission success. The team must be able to perform all essential aspects of the mission, deal with dynamic and complex environments, and detect, identify, and co...

0957-4158/$ see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. A http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mechatronics.2012.09.002 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 217 333 3415. E-mail address: [email protected] (E.T. Hsiao-Wec This paper presents a model-based approach to control design for an existing lower-limb robotic assist device, the portable powered ankle–foot orthosis (PPAFO). This approach seeks to address two k...

BACKGROUND We have developed a novel miniature robotic device (HeartLander) that can navigate on the surface of the beating heart through a subxiphoid approach. This study investigates the ability of HeartLander to perform in vivo semiautonomous epicardial injections on the beating heart. METHODS AND RESULTS The inchworm-like locomotion of HeartLander is generated using vacuum pressure for pr...

This paper fits into the field of research concerning robotic systems for rehabilitation. Robotic are going to be increasingly used assist fragile persons and perform rehabilitation tasks affected by motion injuries. Among recovery therapies, mirror therapy was shown effective functional an arm after stroke. In this we present a master/slave device based on paradigm wrist The is designed orient...

BACKGROUND Use of robotic systems for minimally invasive surgery has rapidly increased during the last decade. Understanding the causes of adverse events and their impact on patients in robot-assisted surgery will help improve systems and operational practices to avoid incidents in the future. METHODS By developing an automated natural language processing tool, we performed a comprehensive an...