Biomechatronics  Laboratory

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

University of California, Irvine

Engineering Gateway 2123

(949)824-8057

contact: Prof. David Reinkensmeyer

Motivation/Research Goals

Research Projects

People

Movies

Research Projects:

Home-based, arm movement training after stroke

We previously developed a web site that allows people with a stroke to practice simple movement training exercises using a joystick at home, and to receive quantitative feedback about their movement recovery progress (www.javatherapy.com).  We are now making a 3D input device that allows people to practice more functional movements (eating, washing, reaching).   The 3D input device is based on Wilmington Robotic Exoskeleton, an anti-gravity arm orthosis developed by Tariq Rahman at the A.I. duPont Hospital for Children.  This device relieves the weight of the arm using elastic bands, allowing even severely weakened people to practice functional movements. Read more on the MARS Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) web site.

Motor adaptation to robot-generated force fields

The goal of this research is to understand how the nervous system learns to move skillfully in changing dynamic environments.  We use computational models to help identify the adaptive control structures that the nervous system uses.  We also investigate how noise, age, fatigue, and neurological injury affect motor adaptation.  We also are developing robot-based techniques for enhancing motor learning.  We are doing these studies with both the arm during reaching and the leg during walking.

Robot-assisted locomotor training

We are developing robotic devices for locomotor training after spinal cord injury.  Our initial work, in collaboration with Dr. Reggie Edgerton at UCLA and Dr. Ray de Leon at CSU Los Angeles, has focused on developing a rat robotic device (commercialized by Robomedica, Inc.).  The device serves as a small-scale test bed for exploring the engineering and physiological principles of step training after spinal cord injury. We are currently using using the robotic system to improve assessment of locomotion after spinal cord injury.  We are also developing novel, robotic movement training techniques.  The information we are deriving from the rat robotic trainer is also being used in the design of a robotic locomotion training device for humans with spinal cord injury (see PAM and ARTHuR movies below).  This work is collaborative with Dr. Jim Bobrow at UCI, Dr. Susan Harkema at Univ. of Louisville, and Dr. Reggie Edgerton at UCLA.

Retraining arm movement after stroke with the ARM Guide

The ARM Guide is a trombone-like device that can assist in arm movement in different directions.  We used this device to test the hypothesis that active-assisted arm exercise after chronic stroke would be more effective than unassisted exercise.  Our first study with twenty stroke subjects at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago suggested that actively assisting in movement in fact did not improve movement recovery more than a matched amount of free reaching exercise (see Kahn et al. 2001, Kahn et al. 2001).  This suggests that repetitive movement attempts by the patient is a primary stimulus to movement recovery (rather than motorized assistance from the robot).  We are now testing whether another form of robotic training, "guided force training", is more effective.  Guided force training is based on the "active constrained mode" developed by Dr. Peter Lum and colleagues at the V.A. Hospital Palo Alto (see Kahn et al. 2003). In this training, the robot stops the patient's arm movement if the patient starts to makes an uncoordinated movement, then requires the patient to move in the correct direction before releasing the arm (see Kahn et al. 2004).  For more information on this study, visit the ARM Guide Laboratory at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

Next generation arm movement training device

We are designing a pneumatic robot based off of the WREX anti-gravity orthosis platform, described above.  For a brief description of this project, see: http://www.nibib1.nih.gov/eAdvances/121504.htm.  Dr. Jim Bobrow at UCI is leading the pneumatic control development for this robot.  Movies of the robot are available here.

People: