Robotic Platforms for Assistance to People with Disabilities—Volume II

Dear Colleagues,

People with congenital and/or acquired disabilities form a significant number of dependents in the current society. These patients lack enough autonomy to live an independent life. Robotic platforms for providing assistance to people with disabilities are being developed with the aim of providing both rehabilitation treatment and assistance in improving their quality of life, mainly applied to people who have mobility problems or some type of functional disability. The impact and capacity of assistance of collaborative robotics in this area has continuously improved the healthcare world in aspects such as chronic disease prevention, saving time for professionals, and lower spending for public health. In this sense, an important aspect to emphasize in these robotic assistance environments is the human–robot interaction. This topic demands sensitive and intelligent robotics platforms, equipped with complex sensory systems, high handling functionalities, safe control strategies, and intelligent computer vision algorithms.

The Special Issue of Applied Sciences “Robotic Platforms for Assistance to People with Disabilities” aims to cover recent advances in the field of robotic platforms to assist disabled people in daily or clinical environments. Papers should address innovative solutions in this field, including affordable assistive robotics devices, new techniques in control/computer vision for intelligent and safe human–robot interaction, exoskeletons or exosuits to assist people with mobility problems, and advances in mobile manipulators for assistive tasks.

Some topics include but are not limited to:

• Assistive robots for people with disabilities in daily or clinical environments;
• Human–robot interaction techniques for assistive environments;
• Computer vision and control for human–robot physical interaction;
• Interaction-aware motion planning with disabled people;
• Exoskeletons or exosoft solutions for assistance;
• Mobile manipulators for assistive tasks.

Prof. Dr. Carlos A. Jara
Dr. Juan Antonio Corrales Ramón
Guest Editors

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