WE-COBOT lab - Wearable and collaborative robotics

The topic of wearable and collaborative robotics, which includes in particular wearable exoskeletons and service robots, is earning incredible interest, particularly in applied in the context of rehabilitative and assistive devices to support disability and health facilities, and to the industrial context for working wellness and prevention. These three contexts, although different from each other, share common technological skills and challenges.

WE-COBOT is an inter-departmental lab of Politecnico di Milano at Polo Territoriale di Lecco, which aims to reply with its competences to these technological challenges. Due to the high multidisciplinarity of the topic, WE-COBOT includes several Departments of Politecnico di Milano, and in particular DEIB, DMECC, DESIGN, DIG, DABC Depts.

Politecnico di Milano has important experiences in the field of robotics for rehabilitation and daily life assistance, an experience already strongly shared between different Departments, and in the design of high-tech environments in the health context. WE-COBOT aims to guarantee an evident positioning at the National and European level to favor an appropriate industrial knowledge transfer and also to develop new technologies and services.

WE-COBOT objectives are:

• User-centered design and development for technological transfer of:
• motorized wearable and collaborative exoskeletons to relief muscoloskeletal work-related disorders;
• rehabilitative solutions exploiting the collaboration between user’s residual ability and robotic assistance, eventually combining also Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES);
• service robots integrated with sensorized objects for elderly assistance and age-related decline monitoring;
• solutions to favor sport activities for people with disabilities in order to promote their social inclusion.
• Development of metrics and sensors to assess rehabilitation efficacy and the wellbeing of the worker and/or fragile person, including ergonomic evaluation of the subject in his/her proper environment.
• Design of control systems based on Machine Learning, Deep Learning and Artificial intelligence for personalization, adaptive/cooperative control of robotic devices, and optimization of user’s intention detection
• Development of architectural solutions that promote the well-being and safety of independent life of elderly and frail people, through domotics and technologies, both robotic or not, for the continuous, transparent, and ecological monitoring of the subject in order to promote early diagnosis and early intervention
• Feasibility studies and business ideas about high-tech solution for heath application (HTA)