Guest Editorial introduction to the Focused section on wearable sensors, actuators, and robots for rehabilitation

Emerging flexible and wearable sensing, actuation and robotic technologies are crucial in the design and development of novel physiotherapy rehabilitation devices and systems that safely interact with humans. The development of wearable devices for physical rehabilitation presents a number of challenges in sensing, actuation, robot mechanism design, data processing algorithms and control, which has attracted increasing attention from researchers in recent years (Jiang et al. 2018; Rehmat et al. 2018). To disseminate current advances and identify challenges and opportunities, this “Focused section on wearable sensors, actuators, and robots for rehabilitation” of the International Journal of Intelligent Robotics and Applications (IJIRA) highlights recent efforts and important achievements in wearable sensors, actuators, and robots in the context of rehabilitation and biomedical applications. This focused section includes six papers out of ten submissions that represent a sample of current developments of wearable mechatronic technologies for healthcare and rehabilitation. The paper “A survey on foot drop and functional electrical stimulation” from York and Chakrabarty presents a review on the modern technologies of the drop foot treatment. Foot drop is a common problem after stroke which will result in a decreased quality of life. This article concludes the current treatment options including fixed ankle–foot orthosis, surgical intervention, and functional electrical stimulation (FES) devices. The paper finds that FES intervention is effective for providing a non-invasive treatment in even severe cases of foot drop. The survey suggests future development of these devices can take advantage of the great strides being made in machine learning and low powered computation. A closed-loop device with dynamic feedback affecting motor output is more flexible to changes in patients’ conditions, potentially encouraging recovery. The second paper “Peripheral nerve bionic interface—a review of electrodes” from Russell et al. surveys the current landscape of extra-neural electrodes for interfacing the peripheral nervous system exploring both clinical and exploratory sciences. As the demand for sensory feedback to and from prosthetic limbs becomes increasingly desirable, implantable neural interfaces are becoming more attractive, this article explores peripheral electrode designs of the cuff type, and emphasizes the complexity of using implantable electrodes for advancing smart prostheses by highlighting many areas of research such as the power transfer and communication techniques to the choice of materials. This