CAREER: Soft Robotics for Upper Extremity Rehabilitation

职业：在上肢残疾方面，《美国残疾人2010年报告》发现，670万人报告难以抓握玻璃杯或铅笔等物体。这些残疾是多种疾病（例如创伤性损伤、中风、脑瘫、烧伤和关节炎）造成的，在几乎所有情况下，都需要康复治疗，以改善运动功能。本次CAREER Award提出开发一种可用于手部康复的软穿戴机器人。与传统治疗相比，该技术将通过精确控制施加到手指和拇指的运动和力来实现更可控和自动化的治疗。软机器人的使用提供了优于传统机器人的优势，这项工作的重点是开发一个软的可穿戴驱动手套和嵌入式传感器系统，解决了一些已知的挑战，在实现这样的系统与传统的刚性机器人组件（即对齐，重量）。此外，嵌入在设备中的传感器将能够控制应用于佩戴者的辅助，并且还能够监控治疗师的活动。目前的职业和治疗本身就很昂贵，病人的剂量（或就诊次数）有限。通过有效的可穿戴机器人系统，可以在诊所和家庭中使用，更频繁，更短，更集中的治疗可能会提高患者康复的速度，并积极影响治疗师的生产力。这个CAREER奖提出将康复模式从治疗师通过一定范围的运动操纵手指和拇指，转变为一个轻量级，舒适和柔软的机器人手套可以在连续被动运动模式或功能辅助模式下提供高剂量康复。这将通过带有集成传感器的新型软致动器来实现，这些传感器可以舒适地向佩戴者施加力，并且集成功能原型将与临床合作伙伴合作对患者进行评估。这项工作将推进软致动器的设计，机械编程，以匹配人类手指和拇指的复杂运动。这将通过在体材料特性中产生各向异性来实现，从而能够实现收缩、延伸、弯曲和扭曲的组合。这些致动器是感兴趣的社区，因为他们是轻量级的，廉价的，并能够复杂的功能。低级别的闭环控制器将在各个执行器上实现，以控制它们的位置和施加的力，此外还将探索用于直观人机交互的不同控制策略。患者和治疗师将参与该项目的所有阶段，并将对患者进行试点研究，以展示这项技术的潜力。

CAREER: Soft Robotics for Upper Extremity RehabilitationIn terms of upper extremity disabilities, the Americans with Disabilities 2010 report found that 6.7 million people reported difficulty grasping objects like a glass or pencil. These disabilities are a result of a wide variety of conditions (e.g. traumatic injury, stroke, cerebral palsy, burns and arthritis) and in nearly all cases rehabilitation therapy is desirable in order to improve motor function. This CAREER Award proposes to develop a soft wearable robot that can be used for hand rehabilitation. Compared to conventional therapy, this technology will enable more controlled and automated therapy by allowing precise control over the motions and forces that are applied to the fingers and thumb. The use of soft robotics offers advantages over traditional robotics and this work focuses on the development of a soft wearable actuated glove and embedded sensor system, which addresses some of the known challenges in implementing such a system with traditional rigid robotic components (i.e. alignment, weight). Additionally, the sensors embedded in the device will enable control over the assistance applied to the wearer and additionally, monitoring of the activities for the therapist. Present occupational and therapy is inherently expensive and the dosage (or number of visits) for patients is limited. With effective wearable robotic systems that can be used in the clinic and home, more frequent but shorter and more focused therapy may increase the speed of patient recovery and positively impact the productivity of therapists.This CAREER Award proposes to shift the paradigm of rehabilitation from one where the therapist manipulates the fingers and thumb through some range of motion, to one where a lightweight, comfortable and soft robotic glove can provide high dose rehabilitation in either a continuous passive motion mode or in a functional assistance mode. This will be achieved through new soft actuators with integrated sensors that can comfortably apply forces to the wearer and integrated functional prototypes that will be evaluated on patients in collaboration with clinical partners. This work will advance soft actuator designs that are mechanically programmed to match the complex motions of the human fingers and thumb. This will be achieved by creating anisotropy in the bulk material properties enabling combinations of contraction, extension, bending and twisting to be achieved. These actuators are of interest to the community because they are lightweight, inexpensive, and capable of complex functionality. Low-level closed-loop controllers will be implemented on individual actuators to control their position and the force they apply and in addition different control strategies for intuitive human-robot interaction will be explored. Patients and therapists will be involved at all stages of the project and pilot studies on patients will be performed to demonstrate the potential of this technology.