The VITA project is a reasearch project in the area of rehabilitation. It is based on a virtual rehabilitation environment, where persons with upper-limb impairment (e.g. due to amputation or stroke) can perform rehabilitation exercises. The users can control a fully functional representation of their impaired limb(s) in virtual reality. This control and the detection of the intented movement is based on their own muscle signals and a state-of-the-art machine learning system.
Virtual Reality (VR) can help as a tool for rehabilitation: the immersion in a virtual environment promises to have a beneficial effect for upper-limb impaired people, e.g. to alleviate phantom limb pain. The main idea consists of letting users play and get engaged in a world where they can see their missing or impaired limbs in action again.
This is the aim of the VITA project, consisting of an off-the-shelf VR device coupled with an intent-detection system specifically developed by the Adaptive Biointerfaces Group at the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics of the DLR.
The VITA project, equipment, laboratory and setup won the 2015 DLR Idea Award. The team consists of Claudio Castellini, Markus Nowak, Christian Nissler, Zoltán-Csaba Márton and Ingo Kossyk. If you are interested, get in touch with us!