Human-Robot Interaction in Rehabilitation and Assistance: a Review

Research in assistive and rehabilitation robotics is a growing, promising, and challenging field emerged due to various social and medical needs such as aging populations, neuromuscular, and musculoskeletal disorders. Such robots can be used in various day-to-day scenarios or to support motor functionality, training, and rehabilitation. This paper reflects on the human-robot interaction perspective in rehabilitation and assistive robotics and reports on current issues and developments in the field. The survey on the literature reveals that new efforts are put on utilizing machine learning approaches alongside novel developments in sensing technology to adapt the systems with user routines in terms of activities for assistive systems and exercises for rehabilitation devices to fit each user’s need and maximize their effectiveness. A review of recent research and development efforts on human-robot interaction in assistive and rehabilitation robotics is presented in this paper. First, different subdomains in assistive and rehabilitation robotic research are identified, and accordingly, a survey on the background and trends of such developments is provided.

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