Design and development of a mobile robot supporting the rehabilitation of free walking

Research Area

Researchers

Description

Current walking rehabilitation is mainly restricted to treadmill walking in order to train basic rhythmic walking patterns. However, a variety of studies emphasize the importance of rehabilitation training in less constrained situations, close to natural everyday behavior. The goal of this project is the development of a mobile robot, which supports the rehabilitation of free walking and complex whole body movements, including training on dynamic balance and of strategies to compensate for movement perturbations. The proposed robot will allow the patient to walk freely in indoors environments, providing (quantifyable) balance support when necessary. In addition, the platform will be suitable for the generation of quantitatively well-defined perturbations of walking in different directions, and during specific phases of the walking cycle.