Speaker information

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Prof. dr. ir. Herman van der Kooij

Organisation: University of Twente

Title of talk: “Wearable Robotics: Overview of activities and future plans”

Time: 13:00

Topic

In this talk an overview will be given on the activities and plans on wearable robotics the UT is involved in. In particular, results of the EU FP7 project Symbitron that the UT coordinates and the plans of the Dutch TTW Perspectief program on Wearable Robotics, which will start in 2018, will be presented.

About the speaker

Prof. Dr. ir. Herman van der Kooij,  (1970) received his Phd with honors (cum laude) in 2000 and is professor in Biomechatronics and Rehabilitation Technology at the Department of Biomechanical Engineering at the University of Twente (0.8 fte), and Delft University of Technology (0.2fte), the Netherlands. His expertise and interests are in the field of human motor control, adaptation, and learning, rehabilitation robots, diagnostic and assistive robotics, virtual reality, rehabilitation medicine, and neuro computational modelling. He was awarded the prestigious Dutch VIDI and VICI grants in 2001 and 2015 respectively. He is associate editor of IEEE TBME and IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, member of IEEE EMBS technical committee of Biorobotics, and was member of several scientific program committees in the field of rehabilitation robotics, bio robotics, and assistive devices. He is member of the program committee of the Dutch IMDI core on Neurocontrol, and of the NeuroSipe program. He is the coordinator of the FP7 project Symbitron and the TTW Perspectief program Wearable Robotics..

Prof. dr. Bernhard Graimann

Organisation: Otto Bock (lab sponsor)

Title of talk: “From Ideas to Research to Innovations”

Time: 13:30

Topic

Academic research institutions produce a large amount of interesting research results. Results that could lead to innovative products, services or processes. However, very often the industry has difficulties to take up these results. The gap between academic achievement and the point a company can take over with a reasonable risk is usually large.  This gap can be reduced or even eliminated by setting up a research collaboration between academia and industry which fosters knowledge transfer. Knowledge transfer from academia to industry and from industry to academia. In this talk, I present examples of such collaborations together with best practices and lessons learned.

About the speaker

Bernhard Graimann is the Head of Translational Research and Knowledge Management, Leading Expert of Neurotechnology, and member of the board of R&D management at Otto Bock HealthCare GmbH, Germany. He is member of the board of the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Göttingen and a member of the board of the Össur-Ottobock Research Fund. Bernhard is also a lecturer at the Graz University of Technology, Austria and at the Medical University Göttingen, Germany.

Bernhard received his Dipl-Ing. in information and computer engineering from the Graz University of Technology in 1999. He obtained his PhD in biomedical engineering and his habilitation (venia docendi) in applied computer science from the Graz University of Technology in 2002 and 2006, respectively. From 2002 to 2006, he worked as a PostDoc at the BCI Lab, Graz University of Technology and from 2006 to 2008 as a Marie-Curie fellow at the Institute of Automation, University of Bremen, Germany. His main research focus in this period was on brain-computer interfaces and bio-signal processing for man-machine interfaces. In 2008, he changed from academia to industry and started to work for Otto Bock HealthCare.

Translational research at Otto Bock HealthCare is defined as applied research that increases the readiness level of technologies, knowledge and expertise in order to facilitate the development of innovative and viable products or services. Translational research is an integral part of innovation management at Otto Bock HealthCare, where it is often done in form of research collaborations with external partners from academia and industry. Bernhard is the head of these activities. In this position, he has designed and coordinated a considerable number of successful national and international research collaborations.

Angelos Karatsidis, MSc.

Organisation: Xsens Technologies

Title of talk: Use of wearable inertial sensors to estimate joint loading

Time: 13:55

Topic

Human body kinematics and kinetics are important for the understanding of musculoskeletal and neuromuscular disorders. However, to date, the conventional assessment of such measures is spatially restricted to gait laboratories, using optical motion tracking and force plate systems. Wearable inertial sensing is a powerful tool, to assess the biomechanics in daily living and facilitate clinical translation. Recent advances of the Xsens MVN inertial motion capture system enable not only ambulatory, but also magnetically immune estimation of body kinematics. In this talk, we present methods to estimate kinetics using exclusively inertial sensors, as well as to drive real-time biofeedback of lower limb kinematics projected on a wearable augmented reality headset.

About the speaker

Angelos Karatsidis is a researcher at Xsens Technologies and PhD candidate at the department of Biomedical Signals and Systems of the University of Twente. His current research focuses on the use of wearable inertial sensors to estimate joint loading, as well as drive biofeedback via augmented reality for the purpose gait retraining. His PhD project is a part of KNEEMO, a Marie Curie research and training network funded by the EU, investigating biomechanical interventions for knee osteoarthritis. Prior to moving to the Netherlands, he obtained his master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the Democritus University of Thrace, in Greece. During his master studies, he investigated hardware implementation of algorithms for the identification of crowd motion behavior. In addition to this, he researched assistive technology input devices during an internship with SciFY NPC in Athens.

Dr. Jaap Buurke

Organisation: Roessingh Research and Development

Title of talk: Substitution or restitution that’s the question

Time: 14:20

Topic

Recovery mechanisms after stroke are still not completely clear. Subjects surviving a stroke improve, but how much of that improvement is due to (true) recovery and how much is due to compensation is still unclear. Insight in these mechanisms is of the utmost importance because training methods and or training devices than can specifically be used to target either recovery or substitution.

The use of new ambulant measurement techniques have proven to be valuable in providing insight in this matter and new wearable robotic devices (including assist as needed algorithms) both as a training device and assistive device look promising in closing the gap between substitution and restitution.

About the speaker

Jaap Buurke, PT, PhD, received his PhD in 2005 from the University of Twente for his work on recovery of gait after stroke. He is track coordinator (Principal Investigator) of the Rehabilitation Technology research cluster at Roessingh Research and Development , adjunct professor at North Western University Chicago (USA), senior researcher at Roessingh Rehabilitation Centre and he is affiliated to the biomedical signals and systems group of the University of Twente. Since 2011 he is the president of the Dutch society for neurorehabilitation “Neurorevalidatie-Keypoint” and he is a member of the Dutch expert group on Neurorehabilitation. He is specialised on human movement analysis with specific expertise in kinesiology (neuromuscular control and biomechanics) after stroke. He is actively involved in a diversity of (inter)national projects focusing on motor control, movement analysis, rehabilitation robotics and active assistive devices.