Wearable Robotics for Healthcare: User-Centered Development, Control and Application Scenarios

Dear Colleagues,

We are witnessing a rapid growth in the demand of wearable robotics. Indeed, recent market studies forecast a huge shift in the market size, which is expected to grow from today’s $200 M to $3.5 B in 2026. Within this domain, healthcare exoskeletons will retain a dominant share because of their rapidly increasing need in the treatment of motor and neuromotor diseases such as spinal cord injury, stroke, brain damage, and neurodegenerative diseases. Consequently, researchers are developing novel devices and technologies to fulfill this need and to facilitate their adoption by increasing user acceptability through co-development approaches which directly involve end-users in the process.

This Research Topic aims at gathering cutting-edge research on novel developments in the field of wearable robotics for both rehabilitation and personal use. The emphasis is on mechatronic hardware developments and control, as well as on design of novel (neuro)rehabilitation training protocols and quantitative methods for the assessment of recovery, including connectomics.

Among other works, we welcome interdisciplinary applied research conducted in co-development with clinicians and/or with other stakeholders with specific focus on the end user, i.e., user-centered design, applied to real-world use case scenarios. In addition, we seek for robotic-based clinical research for (neuro)rehabilitation, Brain/Body-Computer Interfaces involving wearables, neuroimaging-based methods to assess the progress of recovery, methods to evaluate neural and muscular correlates of behavior, including structural/functional/effective connectivity.

Dr. Matteo Laffranchi
Dr. Michela Chiappalone
Guest Editors

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