Hocoma AG
Project dates
Full title of the project:
Transfer of HMD based Immersive Virtual Reality to a Lokomat Gait Rehabilitation Robot
Short name of the project:
LOKO-VR
Date of the award:
29/01/2021
Project duration:
15 months
Lead Company:
Hocoma AG (Switzerland)
Project Partner(s):
SneakyBox (Lithuania)
Abstract
“The primary ambition of LOKO-VR is to transfer and integrate Immersive Virtual Reality (IVR) into Gait Rehabilitation Robotics (GRR) in order to create and demonstrate a novel multisensory training concept for robot-supported NeuroRehabilitation (NR), which is expected to increase task-specificity and patient-involvement in robotic rehabilitation training.
The specific ambition of LOKO-VR is to introduce state of the art IVR into GRRs and truly integrate both so that the “reality” displayed by the robot and the “reality” displayed by the IVR are mutually coupled and in agreement so that they provide an enhanced illusion of walking in an environment.
In this experiment, the available proof of concept implementations that were made in the Hocoma R&D lab and that were tested with healthy subjects will be integrated and expanded to full prototypes by involving professional IVR application development specialists and thus create an integrated system that can be evaluated with patients in a clinical environment. This includes both the virtual reality displayed to the patients, as well as the interface for the therapist to observe and direct the ongoing training.
The development will take place in a user-centred development cycle, with regular consulting of clinical experts and testing of the prototypes under development. In the second half of the project feasibility and usability testing will take place in a clinic, with a small group of 10 subjects suffering from Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) and Cerebro Vascular Accident (CVA) respectively, as primary user groups of the Lokomat GRR.
These user studies will be implemented on a modified Lokomat product, integrated with a commercial HMD platform, and a dedicated LOKO-VR IVR application, thus reaching TRL 7: System prototype demonstration in an operational environment.”