Combining VR with Robotic Gait Rehabilitation

In robotic gait rehabilitation, robots are used to help patients improve or regain the ability to walk. Robots can help to achieve a natural walking motion, though problems arise in keeping patients motivated and engaged in the rehabilitation exercises. In this project, we investigate different ways to use virtual reality (VR) in combination with haptic feedback (forces applied by the robot) to improve robotic gait rehabilitation systems. The goal is to make patients more motivated and get them to be more engaged, as well as to design and build on novel rehabilitation paradigms to make these robotic gait rehabilitation systems more effective.

An additional goal is to develop these techniques for consumer VR technology, such that it may be used and improved upon more widely.