In the last decade, several exoskeletons for shoulder rehabilitation have been presented in the literature. Most of these devices focus on the shoulder complex and limit the normal mobility of the rest of the body, forcing the patient into a fixed standing or sitting position. Nevertheless, this severely limits the range of activities that can potentially be simulated during the rehabilitation, preventing the execution of occupational therapy which involves the execution of tasks based on activities of daily living (ADLs). These tasks involve different muscular groups and whole-body movements, such as, e.g., picking up objects from the ground. To enable whole-body functional rehabilitation, the challenge is to shift the paradigm of robotic rehabilitation towards machines that can enable wide workspaces and high mobility. In this perspective, here we present Float: an upper-limb exoskeleton designed to promote and accelerate the motor and functional recovery of the shoulder joint complex following post-traumatic or post-surgical injuries. Indeed, Float allows the patient to move freely in a very large workspace. The key component that enables this is a passive polyarticulated arm which supports the total exoskeleton weight and allows the patient to move freely in space, empowering rehabilitation through a deeper interaction with the surrounding environment. A characterization of the reachable workspace of both the exoskeleton and the polyarticulated passive arm is presented. These results support the conclusion that a patient wearing Float can perform a wide variety of ADLs without bearing its weight.

Intravenous catheterization is frequently required for numerous medical treatments. However, this process is characterized by a high failure rate, especially when performed on difficult patients such as newborns and infants. Very young patients have small veins, and that increases the chances of accidentally puncturing the catheterization needle directly through them. In this article, we present the design, development and experimental evaluation of a novel hand-held robotic device for improving the process of peripheral intravenous catheterization by facilitating the needle insertion procedure. To our knowledge, this design is the first hand-held robotic device for assisting in the catheterization insertion task. Compared to the other available technologies, it has several unique advantages such as being compact, low-cost and able to reliably detect venipuncture. The system is equipped with an electrical impedance sensor at the tip of the catheterization needle, which provides real-time measurements used to supervise and control the catheter insertion process. This allows the robotic system to precisely position the needle within the lumen of the target vein, leading to enhanced catheterization success rate. Experiments conducted to evaluate the device demonstrated that it is also effective to deskill the task. Naïve subjects achieved an average catheterization success rate of 88% on a 1.5 mm phantom vessel with the robotic device versus 12% with the traditional unassisted system. The results of this work prove the feasibility of a hand-held assistive robotic device for intravenous catheterization and show that such device has the potential to greatly improve the success rate of these difficult operations.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) offer high potential for enhancing training in many tasks, especially those that require maintaining high levels of concentration such as surgery. Training focus and attention can play a critical role in surgery since concentration on the task at hand is fundamental to prevent life-threatening errors. In this paper we propose a new method for concentration training in the context of robot-assisted laser microsurgery associated to a feedback design that makes the interaction more intuitive. This approach couples augmented reality (AR) features to both BCI-based on-line measurement of the user's mental focus and the control of the surgical robot. The methodology is described as a brain-controlled augmented reality (BcAR) training system. AR is used to maintain the surgeon's perceptual contact with the real operating setting, while focus stimulation is provided by modifying features of an AR item based on real-time monitoring of the user's mental state. In this research a low-cost EEG device is used and the BcAR is implemented in the form of an AR scalpel that behaves as a "retractable" knife according to the user's mental focus: low concentration levels retract the knife and prevent cutting. This design provides directional compatibility between the AR feedback animation and the spontaneous motion of user's attention along the AR tool, resulting in an intuitive system with real impact on the training outcome. This is demonstrated through user trials and comparison with training based on simple AR feedback (no EEG). Results demonstrate the potential of the approach, showing a significant improvement in post-training task execution time without any detriment to user experience. Subjective questionnaires also confirmed the critical role of directional compatibility in the AR feedback. Such findings allow the identification of further improvements and novel potential applications of this interaction paradigm.