ReNeu (Rehabilitation and Neuromuscular) Robotics Lab
View a photo slideshow from the ReNeu Robotics Lab
After injuring his hand in a sports accident and going through long and painful physical rehabilitation, Ashish Deshpande, a mechanical engineering assistant professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering, came to appreciate the challenges of physical therapy. He also knew that he had found a health care problem that could benefit from an engineering solution.
Robotics for rehabilitation is an emerging field, and currently only a few such devices exist. Deshpande and his team believe they can address the need for robotic devices that interact safely with patients and have the functionalities that therapists need.
“Physical therapy is labor-intensive, highly repetitive and costly. There is an opportunity for robots to assist, not replace, therapists. With robots we may be able to ease the burden on the caregivers and make therapy more available,” Deshpande said. “If you look at statistics, it’s very clear that we are going to need help in the medical field in terms of aging populations with physical and neurological disorders who will need physical therapy.”
Two years ago, Deshpande established the ReNeu Robotics Lab in the Department of Mechanical of Engineering to apply robotics technologies to the area of rehabilitation and prosthetics. Deshpande and his team of graduate and undergraduate students are developing health-related robotic technologies that are functional and human-friendly.
While it’s a long road from a design to a prototype to a product, the lab is making huge strides on three health-related robotics devices: a rehabilitation robotic hand, an upper-body rehabilitation exoskeleton and a human-like prosthetic robotic hand. These three projects have attracted more than $1.3 million in funding from the National Science Foundation and NASA. Deshpande’s project on the development of a prosthetic hand also earned him the NSF’s prestigious CAREER award in 2011.
Utilizing hand biomechanics and robot controls, the team’s prosthetic hand has human-like fingers, with mechanical muscles and tendons that will have the ability to hold and manipulate objects just like a human hand. At this stage, Deshpande and his team are focused on developing flexible, tendon-controlled joints, as well as the software to control the hand through visual and sensory signals. Ultimately, they hope to build a robotic hand that will closely mimic human neuromuscular behavior.
“We’ve gone further than anyone else in terms of human-like mechanical features and neuromuscular controls. Our goal is to spur the development of next-generation prosthetic hands,” Deshpande said.
Likewise, the team’s rehabilitation robotics for the hand and upper-body are also going far beyond any comparable devices. In rehabilitation, robotic devices can deliver repetitive therapeutic exercises and programmable motions that make them ideal. The lab’s upper-body device could help deliver therapy to patients with spinal cord injuries, or those who have suffered strokes and have impaired muscle control.
The lab’s hand device is designed to enable greater movement. While other hand devices only offer position control for one or two joints, the team is building a device that provides more flexibility of motion and more precise force control or intensity of pressure for many joints.
With the robotic devices, physical therapists will be able to monitor patients’ progress precisely and keep patients more engaged.
“The robots we are building will move the patients safely and comfortably through their natural movements,” Deshpande said. “New therapy options will open up because you can assist as well as resist the patients’ movements, allowing the therapists to develop personalized therapy plans.”