From mid-March to mid-April, the full Symbitron exoskeleton was used to train two test pilots with a complete spinal cord injury at Fondazione Santa Lucia in Rome. The Symbitron research team had to overcome quite some technical challenges but eventually succeeded to train the test pilots. Despite the short training time, one of the patients…
Project members of Delft University of Technology and University of Twente will continue their collaboration and join their forces in a Cybathlon team. Also physical therapist and rehabilitaion physicians from the Dutch rehabilitation centre Roessingh will particpate in this team. They will further develop the Symbitron modular exoskeleton and train two Dutch test pilots to walk…
On Friday May 18, we had the final review meeting of the Symbitron project at the University of Twente. During this review meeting, the modular exoskeleton developed within this project was demonstrated in its new home, the Wearable Robtics lab. Additionally, the latest results on training patients with a complete SCI to walk with this exoskeleton…
Work by Etienne Burdet (Imperial College, London, UK) and colleagues on physical interactions between individuals has been published this month in Nature Human Behavior. For more information, please read the news item on the website of Imperial College.
Thursday 9 February 2017, Roberto Viola (Director General of DG CONNECT at the European Commission) and Marco Marsella (head of unit Inclusion, Skills and Youth, DG CONNECT at the European Commission) have visited the NeuroRobotics lab at FSL. They went for a lab tour where the Achilles and WE1 were demonstrated and were introduced to…
On Friday February 3rd, an extra review meeting was held at FSL to show the EU reviewers and project officer the progress that was made with our Wearable Exoskeleton 1. They were very happy that we could show them two working demo's: Training of one of the SCI test pilots with the Achilles (ankle) exoskeleton…
Promotion video of one of the developers walking in WE1 in zero impedance mode
From monday 22 February till Friday 26 February 2016, 9 of the 10 Symbitron test pilots came to the University of Twente to take part in a large number of experiments: Assist As Needed protocol in the LOPES Sslow perturbations in the LOPES Multi-joint perturbations in the LOPES NeuroMuscular Controllers in the LOPES Sensory substitution with the…
The Achilles has been travelling a lot the last weeks. It started in Enschede where it was upgraded and used for tests with the NMC’s and preliminary balance tests with healthy subjects. From there it went to Rome for the balance tests with the Symbitron test pilots and from Rome it went to London for…
From 23-25 November 2015, the M24 Symbitron progress meeting was held at the Imperial College campus in London. The first day of this meeting was combined with a Scientific Advisory Board meeting. Three SAB members were updated on the progress made in the first two years of the project via short presentations. At the end…
From 17 to 19 November, the Achilles was tested by two Symbitron test pilots (group I) in two different experiments. In the first experiment different controllers for balancing with the Achilles were evaluated and in the second experiment the balancing performance of the subjects while receiving vibrotactile feedback about the Center of Mass or the…
From 26-29 October, the NeuroMuscular Controllers, as developed by EPFL, were tested in combination with the Achilles on 3 healthy subjects. Full datasets, consisting of EMG, motion capture, VO2 and ground reaction force data, were collected while walking at different speeds.
From 21-23 September slow-walking experiments have been performed in at UTwente. 10 healthy subjects walked for several minutes at very low speeds, while EMG, motion capture and ground reaction force data was collected. The results will be used to upgrade the NMC models to suit very slow walking speeds as well.
From 16-20 March 2015, some first tests with the neuromuscular controllers (developed by EPFL) in combination with the Achilles exoskeleton (developed by TUD) were conducted in Enschede. Reflex patterns of the Soleus and Tibialis Anterior muscles were mimicked in the torque control of the Achilles. A subject wearing the Achilles was able to walk at…
We've launched our own Symbitron wiki! On this wiki (symbitron.eu/wiki) we will place documentation that is helpful for Symbitron members, but might also be useful for others and is therefore open for everbybody to visit. If you want to contribute to the wiki, please send an email to: info at symbitron dot eu, and an account…