ROGER

The goal of the Robot-Assisted Gait Training in Orthopedic Rehabilitation (ROGER) project is to develop a completely new type of personal training robot that assists patients after orthopedic surgery on the foot, knee or hip in inpatient or outpatient rehabilitation with personalized gait exercises to restore a normal physiological gait pattern.

This is done as part of the so-called self-training of patients, which has a high therapeutic as well as health economic potential, but is only effective if gait or movement errors are corrected as soon as they occur. Instead of a physiotherapist, the training robot will accompany the patients during their gait training. Based on its 3D spatial perception, it will use its on-board sensors (laser scanner and 3D cameras) to actively guide, observe and evaluate the gait training of the rehabilitation patient, intervene in a corrective manner and record the course and progress of the training, i.e. the patient's daily gait performance and the change in gait pattern over the course of the therapy as long-term therapy documentation. In addition, this will allow for the first time the detailed observation and evaluation of the patient's 3D movement patterns during therapeutically relevant rehabilitation exercises also in everyday environments (e.g. climbing and descending stairs). Of particular importance will be the active influence of the accompanying robot on the current training process - by detecting walking errors and by situation-specific corrective interventions via image, sound or voice output or via radio on electrical stimulators, e.g. on the leg of the exercising patient.

The goal of ROGER is thus an intelligent system solution of service and assistance robotics that encompasses all aspects to be addressed - from the medically, socio-scientifically, technically and legislatively driven requirements analysis, to the method- and technology-driven hardware (robot platform with sensor equipment) and software development (recognition, interaction, analysis and navigation intelligence), to the evaluation of the system solution in clinical function and user tests. ROGER will thus achieve a high health economic significance, also by providing innovative services for the areas of healthy living and quality of life in old age with this solution.