Rehabilitation robotics in Padua, Italy

This paper presents the research activity in the field of rehabilitation robotics of the Robotics & Automation research group leaded by Prof. Aldo Rossi at the Department of Innovation in Mechanics and Management (DIMEG) of University of Padua, Italy. Starting from the experience gained in the development of cable driven haptic displays, our research activity was devoted to the development of cable driven robots for upper limb rehabilitation of post stroke patients in the subacute phase. Two prototypes of such machines have been built so far, the NeReBot and the MariBot, which allow to implement robot-assisted passive exercises in a three dimensional working space. These robots use three driven cables to sustain the forearm of the patient and to guide him through the execution of the exercise. In both cases, the cables originate from an overhead structure. The first robot has been successfully tested in clinical environment, and the limitations arisen during clinical trials lead to the design of the second robot, which came up as an evolution of the first one. A third cable driven device is currently being designed. This robot will have a planar working space and will be suited to implement active-assisted exercises, targeting not only sub-acute patients but also chronic patients. Regarding the strategy of our group, a strong effort will be devoted to establish international collaborations with other research groups in the field of rehabilitation robotics. Secondly, in a medium-long term perspective we are attempting to open a new rehabilitation center in Padua specialized in robot-aided rehabilitation. In this way, we aim not only to enlarge the number of patients involved in clinical trials of the machines, but also to reduce the time-to-patient of our devices, which nowadays is quite long.