Abstract:

Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a debilitating neurological condition affecting an estimated 15–20 million people worldwide and severely impacting mobility, independence, and quality of life. 

This research revolves around one fascinating question: what if engaging in upper-body activities while standing could be made possible again for paraplegic patients? 

In recent years, epidural electrical stimulation (EES) has emerged as a promising approach for restoring locomotion. In contrast, stable standing has been less extensively studied. 

Therefore, this research aims to design a 3-degrees-of-freedom robotic experimental platform that provides a safe and controlled environment for standing training and patient performance assessment. Through electrical stimulation of the spinal cord, patients will regain the ability to stand and will be trained to maintain their balance on a platform that can be tilted and elevated. Their reaching abilities will additionally be trained and assessed through tasks performed in a virtual reality environment. 

My work focused on developing a user interface and control architecture capable of communicating with the platform’s motors, acquiring their real-time positions, and coordinating their movements. The communication between the control software and the robotic platform, as well as the mechanisms required to start, monitor, and safely stop the system have been successfully implemented. This resulted in a software providing controlled and reliable operation of the motors of the robotic platform. 

Future work will involve simulation and the integration of virtual reality and additional sensors, including foot and hand force sensors and hand tracking, to enable quantitative assessment of patient performance.