A Collaborative Robotic Approach to Gaze-Based Upper-Limb Assisted Reaching

Robotic treatment has been recognized as a powerful tool to face the consequences of neurological impairments such as stroke. Among several potential benefits, the possibility to program high-intensity and repetitive movements increased the popularity of this type of rehabilitation technologies for upper limb disabilities. Nevertheless, although the results are encouraging, we are still far from guaranteeing a complete recovery to all patients, and some degree of external assistance is required to enable them to execute their activities of daily living. Hence, we aim to build a system which may serve not only as a rehabilitative tool, but also as a complement to assist the users in everyday tasks. In this direction, we present a novel Human-Robot Interface (HRI), which can detect and learn repetitive user movements through gaze, and provide assistance via a collaborative robot. The robot, which provides support to the user's wrist using a comfortable interface, executes the learnt traj...