Tutorials

Tutorial 1: Purpose-centred Design of Rehabilitation Robots: a Novel Design Methodology

Dr. Hao Yu

Hao is post-doctoral research associate at the RAI Lab of Heriot-Watt University. He obtained his PhD at Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh with a focus on exoskeleton-assisted hand rehabilitation. In his PhD project, he was mainly working on the design and development of a hand exoskeleton for spasticity assessment. Prior to this, He obtained a Bachelor's degree in Mechatronics Engineering from Harbin Institute of Technology and a Master's degree in Human and Biological Robotics from Imperial College London. His research interests lie primarily in rehabilitation robotics, neuromechanics, and musculoskeletal simulation.

Abstract: Hand exoskeletons offer promising solutions for hand function rehabilitation. Despite considerable research on novel exoskeleton technologies and the commercial availability of many hand exoskeletons, most hand exoskeletons can only perform motor training and assistance, rather than diagnosis of hand diseases. This limitation is also observed in other rehabilitation robots. Designing a rehabilitation robot for medical purposes necessitates the integration of existing technologies, tailored to the symptoms, clinical conditions, and management methods of the target disease. To facilitate such design, this tutorial presents a design strategy for rehabilitation robots that assist in the therapy and assessment of specific diseases. The strategy first systematically gathers prior medical and engineering knowledge on the management of the target disease and clarifies all design requirements, including medical goals and user needs. Next, a modified Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and the Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) methods are used to identify the primary requirements and the optimal design scheme based on existing technical solutions. Lastly, the optimal design scheme is prototyped, tested, and refined iteratively until the product satisfies the design purpose. As an illustrative case study of this design strategy, the design of a hand exoskeleton for assessing hand spasticity will be discussed and the physical system will be demonstrated in the hand-on session. This strategy is adaptable for designing hand exoskeletons for other diseases or developing other types of rehabilitation robots, thereby extending the potential of rehabilitation robots in diagnostic and therapeutic applications.

Tutorial 2: Ergonomic Design of Exoskeletons for Movement Assistance and Rehabilitation

Dr. Emilio Trigili

Emilio Trigili is Assistant Professor at the BioRobotics Institute of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA). He completed his PhD in BioRobotics at SSSA in 2019 and holds an MSc. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Pisa (Italy). He is actively involved in several European and national projects, leading, supervising and conducting activities related to the design, control and validation of upper- and lower-limb robotic exoskeletons for rehabilitation and assistance, as well as robotic lower-limb prostheses. He is currently the PI of the BioARMnext project, funded by and in collaboration with the Italian National Institute for Insurance against Accidents at Work (INAIL), aimed at developing a portable upper-limb exoskeleton for people with brachial plexus injuries.

Abstract: The design of a wearable robot for movement assistance and rehabilitation poses several challenges for what concerns the physical and cognitive human-robot interaction. In this tutorial talk, the concepts of physical and cognitive human-robot interfaces for wearable robots will be introduced, along with ergonomic design principles of wearable robots for movement assistance and rehabilitation. Safety and ergonomics issues can be addressed via the employment of compliant actuation units, such as series-elastic actuators (SEAs), for their shock-absorption and energy storage capabilities, and via the inclusion of passive degrees of freedom in the robot kinematic chain, in order to allow the self-alignment between the human and robot axes and unload the articulations from undesired forces. On the other hand, smart algorithms and control strategies can be implemented in order to timely detect the user’s intention to move, and adapt the robot action accordingly for a seamless human-robot interaction. Starting from the experience of The Wearable Robotics Lab of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, which has a consolidated know-how in the design of rehabilitation and assistive exoskeletons with compliant actuation units (i.e., SEAs), such ergonomics principles will be presented showing examples of their implementation on wearable exoskeletons for the upper- and lower limbs.

Hands-on Session

Session#1: Experience with a Hand-Exoskeleton for Spasticity Assessment

Dr. Hao Yu

In this hands-on session, attendees will be guided through a design strategy to create a rehabilitation device tailored to their specific medical needs. The process will start with identifying the target rehabilitation function, followed by progressively translating the clinical requirements into a cohesive integration of technical solutions, and will culminate in a design sketch of a prototype. This design process will take approximately one hour. Afterwards, participants will have the opportunity to try out the hand exoskeleton we have developed for spasticity assessment using this design strategy. They will be able to refine their designs through discussions with the organizers and fellow attendees.

Session#2: Design and Implementation of a Simulator Interacting with a Physical Elbow Exoskeleton

Dr. Michele Francesco Penna

Michele Francesco Penna is a post-doctoral researcher at the Wearable Robotics Lab of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Pisa, Italy), where he obtained his PhD in BioRobotics in 2025. He graduated in industrial engineering with a master’s degree in biomedical engineering from Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome. His research interests include the development, control and validation of upper-limb exoskeletons for rehabilitation and assistance scenarios.

In this hands-on session, we will work on an upper-limb exoskeleton developed by the Wearable Robotics Lab of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna. The device is a portable elbow exoskeleton, which was designed to be integrated as modular component of an upper-limb portable exoskeleton (shoulder and elbow) for assistance of daily-living in people with brachial plexus injuries or after a stroke. The exoskeleton is capable to monitor torque and position at the elbow level and can be controlled to provide different interaction modalities (from simple gravity compensation to robot-in-charge assistance), to deal with patients with different levels of movement limitations. The device is the result of a user-centered design process, in which different stakeholders, including clinicians and patients, were involved since the initial phase of the design, to identify the clinical needs and the main functional requirements to be translated into technical specifications.

In the hands-on session, participants will be guided in the design and implementation of a simulator that takes as input data from the exoskeleton sensors (elbow joint torque and angle) to verify the implementation of specific control strategies (e.g., gravity compensation) tailored to the target end users. Additionally, they will build a graphical user interface in LabVIEW environment, to visualize graphically the exoskeleton’s sensor data and other real-time processed data, set the control input for the device and save the data. The design of the simulator and the GUI will take into account the main features of the device, specifically considering a target end user population, as well as requirements for a user-friendly interface that can be easily operated by non-technical personnel (e.g., clinicians). At the end of the hands-on session, participants will have the opportunity to try the device, with the possibility of implementing the simulated control strategy on the real hardware.

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