Interfacing Humans and Robots for Gait Assistance and Rehabilitation

This textbook presents concepts of physical, cognitive, and social human-robot interaction to empower the process of gait rehabilitation and to assist human mobility. Its focus is on bioinspired design, development, and testing of novel modular robotic components, such as wearable robots (exoskeletons), mobile robots (smart walkers) and social robots. The aim is to provide more natural, efficient, and safe interaction through the implementation of technologies such as soft robotics, impedance control, automatic learning, motion planning, and cloud computing. Case studies show how robots interact with humans and perform collaborative tasks in rehabilitation scenarios. Trends and opportunities for future advances of human-robot interaction in healthcare scenarios are also discussed.Interfacing Humans and Robots for Gait Assistance and Rehabilitation will enable undergraduate and graduate students of biomedical engineering, rehabilitation engineering, robotics, and health sciences to understand the clinical needs, technology, and science of human-robot interaction behind robotic devices for rehabilitation and the implications related to implementation of those devices in real therapy and daily life applications.    Provides concepts and examples for different types of robots; Addresses clinical needs and perspectives; Looks at human-robot-environment strategies for assistive mobility.