CAREER: Soft Robotics for Upper Extremity Rehabilitation

职业：用于上肢康复的软体机器人就上肢残疾而言，2010年美国残疾人报告发现，670万人报告难以抓取玻璃或铅笔等物体。这些残疾是由各种各样的情况（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，康复治疗都是为了改善运动功能。本次CAREER奖旨在开发一种可用于手部康复的软性可穿戴机器人。与传统疗法相比，这项技术将通过精确控制施加在手指和拇指上的运动和力量，使治疗更加可控和自动化。软机器人的使用比传统机器人具有优势，这项工作的重点是开发软可穿戴驱动手套和嵌入式传感器系统，该系统解决了使用传统刚性机器人组件（即对齐，重量）实现此类系统的一些已知挑战。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，另外，还可以监控治疗师的活动。目前的职业和治疗本身就很昂贵，而且病人的剂量（或就诊次数）有限。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恢复的速度，并对治疗师的生产力产生积极影响。这个职业奖提议将康复的范例从治疗师通过一定范围的运动来操纵手指和拇指，转变为一种轻便，舒适和柔软的机器人手套，可以在持续的被动运动模式或功能辅助模式下提供高剂量的康复。这将通过带有集成传感器的新型软致动器实现，该传感器可以舒适地对佩戴者施加力，并且集成的功能原型将与临床合作伙伴合作对患者进行评估。这项工作将推进软执行器的设计，通过机械编程来匹配人类手指和拇指的复杂运动。这将通过在大块材料属性中创建各向异性来实现，从而实现收缩、拉伸、弯曲和扭转的组合。这些执行器引起了社区的兴趣，因为它们重量轻，价格低廉，并且能够实现复杂的功能。将在单个执行器上实施低级闭环控制器来控制它们的位置和所施加的力，此外还将探索不同的控制策略以实现直观的人机交互。患者和治疗师将参与项目的所有阶段，并将对患者进行试点研究，以证明这项技术的潜力。

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.