Dr. Juan C. Moreno contributes to “Cyber–Physical–Human Systems,” a book exploring the latest in the interactions between cyber–physical systems and humans
Participation in everyday life and life satisfaction are greatly affected by disabilities. Motor impairments caused by neurological disorders, like spinal cord injury, stroke, traumatic brain injury, and multiple sclerosis, represent a significant burden for those affected and society. Wearable robotics and neuro-prostheses are two emerging technologies to recover mobility by generating lost movements or amplifying residual weak functions. The suppression of pain, elimination of spasticity, and movement restoration by spinal cord stimulation (i.e., neuromodulation) represent other indirect means for the mobilization of the impaired.
Together with Dr. Thomas Schauer (https://www.tu.berlin/control/user-tschauer) working at the Control Systems Group at the Technische Universität Berlin and Dr. Eduard Fosch-Villaronga from Universiteit Leiden (https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/eduard-fosch-villaronga#tab-1) wrote a chapter introducing the underlying basics of neuro-prostheses, spinal cord stimulation, and wearable robotics and highlights recent technological developments with application examples and open challenges. These include using various sensor technologies to recognize the user’s intention, generalized movement, muscular fatigue, and environmental disturbances. The authors discussed feedback and learning control as essential solutions for user-individual support and assist-as-needed behavior and outlined hybrid approaches in evolving multi-modal actuation principles to combine the advantages and compensate for the disadvantages of the individual support modalities. They also provided examples of hybrid systems connecting wearable robots and electrical stimulation illustrate the current state of the art and research before discussing applicability and transfer to daily practice, which, Fosch-Villaronga remarks, does not come without drawbacks.
Wanna read more? You can access the article by following this link (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10154097). If you want to read the book, you can access it here (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/book/10154022).