Project Objectives
The introduction of robotic technologies in rehabilitation is very interesting, especially from the point of view of learning/relearning and the improvement of therapeutic efficiency. However, robot-aided rehabilitation for both upper and lower limb still has not reached the same therapeutic results of conventional therapy. Generally, recovery is related to an improvement in motor skills thanks to numerous repetitions of simple movements such as point-to-point movement, significantly different from the actions carried out during daily life activities, in the presence of a purely visual feedback provided by means of a user graphical interface. Moreover, a robotic platform able to replicate the interaction and the communication established between a therapist and a patient, during a conventional rehabilitation session, represents an outstanding source of technological innovation for a novel concept of robot-aided rehabilitation and it is extremely challenging in terms of human-robot interaction, robot autonomy, safety, reliability and effectiveness of the rehabilitation treatment.
The main objective of the HeAL 9000 project is to design, develop and validate a smart robot-aided rehabilitation platform able to promote and facilitate motor relearning of patients through a human-robot interaction with the advantage of adopting the same communication channels of a therapist-patient interaction, i.e. verbal, physical and cognitive.
The HeAL9000 robotic platform: (i) will be composed of a service robot capable of replicating the behaviour of the therapist thanks to the use of Machine Learning
and Learning by Demonstration techniques; (ii) will autonomously adapt to the patient’s state and the context by means of multiparametric monitoring of the patient; (iii) will establish a verbal, physical and cognitive interaction with the patient, similar to that observed in the therapist-patient binomial, with the dual purpose of motivating the patient and of strongly personalizing the treatment itself based on the physical and cognitive state of the patient.
Start/End Date
06/2020 – 05/2022
Scientific responsibility
Prof. Loredana Zollo
Clinical activities responsibility
Prof. Silvia Sterzi
Coordinating institution of the project
Exprivia spa
Other participants
Reveal srl; Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”
Source of funding
Regione Lazio