About the laboratory

Laboratory of Clinical Evaluation with Robotics

The Laboratory of Clinical Evaluation with Robotics is demonstrating the effectiveness of assistive robotics or devices to support mobility, transfer, toileting, bathing, and communication, mainly for the elderly and caregivers. To achieve this, our research aim is to investigate how a brain-body system has adapted and changed through the use of assistive robots with various analysis techniques such as motion, biological signals, and brain function with functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Research focus

To investigate the effects of introducing assistive robots to support transfers, toileting, and bathing, to reduce the physical burden on caregivers and support the independence of care recipients in nursing facilities.
To investigate the effects of walking support robots for older people using markerless motion analysis with a treadmill augmented by a virtual reality system.
To develop “cardiorespiratory coherence analysis” to evaluate the degree of mental and physical burden for caregivers and care recipients in nursing facilities.
To develop a measurement system to quantify the trajectory of actions in caregivers and the living range of care recipients with multiple video cameras and a deep learning algorithm.
To investigate the brain function related to the interaction between older people and baby-like robots with functional magnetic resonance imaging.

Members

Associate professor	Kenji Kato
Research fellow	Tatsuya Yoshimi
Researcher	Azusa Asai
Research assistant	Hiroko Nakamura Atsuko Tomimura Junko Inagaki Soshi Fujisawa Masahiro Nishimura
Visiting researcher	Mami Ito Nobuaki Mizuguchi Shohei Tsuchimoto Oriella Gnarra(ETH Zurich) Alexander Breuss(ETH Zurich)