Recently, the 2023 Comprehensive Academic Annual Conference of the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine (CARM) was held at the National Convention Center in Beijing, where the Association's Science and Technology Award for the Year was presented. Professor Yu Hongliu, Dean of the Institute of Intelligent Rehabilitation Engineering of USST, and his research team successfully finished the research project, Key Technologies and Applications of Interactive Multi-degree Motion Rehabilitation Training Robots", the project which won the first prize of the 2023 Science and Technology Award of CARM. This is also the first rehabilitation training robot technology achievement award in the field of rehabilitation engineering in China, indicating that the research team at USST has been an academic leader in the field of rehabilitation training robots in China and has been highly recognized by industry peers.
Modern rehabilitation training robots have become an important method of rehabilitation for functional impairments caused by central nervous system diseases, and its market potential is expected to reach billions in the next decade. the enterprises in developed countries were the first to launch related products in this century and have long monopolized domestic and international markets. Given the huge market demand in this field in China, technological autonomy has become a national concern.
However, the multi-degree motion of collaborative human-machine interaction in rehabilitation training robots is extremely complex. and the multi-joint and multi-degree motion bionic configuration design and flexible interaction control are key technical bottlenecks that constrain the development of high-end products. Professor Yu Hongliu and his team have been conducting research on key technologies such as multi-joint motion coordination, biomimetics, and human-machine interaction flexibility of rehabilitation robots since 2009, and have made major breakthroughs. With the support from the Ministry of Science and Technology of PRC, the National Natural Science Foundation of PRC, and the Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Commission, after more than 10 years of research and development, the research team has made a series of technological breakthroughs, including the creation of a multi configuration, multi-scale upper and lower limb rehabilitation robot , biomimetic mechanism for multi joint and multi degree of motion collaboration, motion perception, and flexible interaction control. A total of 40 related invention patents have been obtained, over 120 related academic papers are published and some were published on top academic journals. The main contributors to this achievement include Meng Qiaoling, Li Sujiao, Hu Bingshan, Wang Duoqian, and Shi Ping.
Under a series of key technological breakthroughs, Professor Yu Hongliu led a team to further promote the technology development in the rehabilitation robot industry. Together with multiple domestic rehabilitation robot enterprises, they developed the first rehabilitation training robot products with six series of innovations in China. This products were put into use in over 2000 medical rehabilitation institutions in China, The products, part of the project achievements, have greatly improved the technical level and practical value of domestic rehabilitation robots, thus, breaking the market monopoly of foreign rehabilitation robot products and are of huge economic and social value.
