Benificiaries
Brubotics - Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Belgium
Axiles Bionics
Belgium
Partners
University of Michigan
Michigan
AUSL Della Romagna
Italia
Supervisors
Academic
Dr. Ivan Vujaklija
Aalto
Ivan Vujaklija is an assistant professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Automation at Aalto University in Finland where he runs the Bionic and Rehabilitation Engineering research group. He holds a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Belgrade, and an M.Sc. degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Lübeck. In 2016 he obtained his PhD degree in human medical sciences at the University of Göttingen, while working as a research assistant at the Institute of Neurorehabilitation Systems. From 2012 until 2014 he worked for Ottobock Healthcare GmbH, one of the world-leading prosthetic manufacturers. In 2014 and 2015 he was a research fellow at Arizona State University and Medical University of Vienna respectively. From 2017 until 2018 he has been working as a research associate at the Department of Bioengineering at the Imperial College London. Prof. Vujaklija was a part of a team of researchers that pioneered techniques for non-invasive spinal interfacing for rehabilitation applications. The same team has successfully introduced a novel, technology driven surgical paradigm for limb reconstruction which is now becoming a clinical state of the art. His research interests include bio-signal processing, advanced control algorithms, prosthetics, rehabilitation robotics, and neural control of movement.
Dr. Giacomo Severini
UCD
Giacomo Severini is an Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering at the School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering since 2016. His research is focused on the study of human motor control and motor learning as a mean for developing novel concepts and tools for improving rehabilitation of impaired individuals. He is particularly interested in the development and use of robots in various aspects of the rehabilitation process. Dr. Severini received his MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering from Roma Tre University in Rome, Italy, in 2008 and 2012, respectively. He worked as Research Associate at the Motion Analysis Laboratory of the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston from 2011 to 2015, Research Assocaite at the Ferrara University Hospital from 2013 to 2016 and as postdoctoral researcher at Harvard Medical School from 2012 to 2015.
Dr. Tom Verstraten
VUB
Tom Verstraten is a professor at the Robotics & Multibody Mechanics Research Group (R&MM) of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). He received his Master in Electromechanical Engineering from the VUB in 2012 and his Ph.D. from the same institution in 2018. He was awarded fellowships of the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO) for both his doctoral and postdoctoral research. In between, he worked in industry as a R&D Engineer at Aquasystems International. He was also a visiting researcher at TU Darmstadt (Germany) for a period of four months in 2017 and at the University of Tulsa (United States) for eight months in 2018-19. For this research stay, he was awarded a Fulbright grant for visiting scholars. His main research focus is the study and development of energy-efficient actuation systems for robotic prostheses, exoskeletons and collaborative robots. Research interests include elastic actuators and redundant actuation.
Dr. Donal Holland
UCD
Dónal Holland is an Assistant Professor in Biomechanics at the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering. His research focuses on the mechanical design of assistive technology and robotic systems for rehabilitation and movement retraining. He also conducts research in engineering education. He received his BA, BAI, and PhD from the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at Trinity College Dublin. He was a Visiting Fellow from 2011 to 2014 and a Visiting Lecturer from 2014 to 2016 at the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in Harvard University.
Industry
Dr. Jose Gonzalez-Vargas
Ottobock
Jose Gonzalez-Vargas is the Head of the Research Hub Germany (Global Research), Ottobock SE & Co. KGaA in Germany. His research focuses on the development of human-machine interfaces, robotics and neuro-rehabilitation devices. In his past he has designed robotic systems, embedded electronics and control algorithms (e.g. development of a bio-inspired control scheme of an elastic actuator using “Feedback Error Learning”). He has experience working on several research and industry related projects, in a variety of countries.
Dr. Matija Štrbac
TECSR
Dr. Matija Štrbac (male) received M.Sc. degree from the University of Belgrade, School of Electrical Engineering in 2011. Until 2015, Matija worked on the research project financed by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of the Republic of Serbia as a Research Assistant at the School of Electrical Engineering and in 2017 Matija successfully defended his PhD thesis focused on the development of the computer vision system for automatic control of electrical stimulation. In parallel, from 2013, Matija started working for Tecnalia Serbia Ltd. as the lead researcher in the projects related to FES assisted rehabilitation of upper extremity and development of electrotactile feedback interface for myoelectric hand prostheses. Following succesful results of these projects and the potential of the developed technology, the scope of research on multi-array electrodes and electrotactile feedback was extended to other application scenarios ranging from VR interactions and telemanipulation to the use in mission critical communication via series of competitive public and privatly funded RnD projects. From 2016 Matija has the role of the Director of Tecnalia Serbia Ltd, where he is currently leading a team of 4 senior and 6 junior researchers. He was a WP leader in several H2020 projects focused on various applications of electrotactile feedback. Matija is an author of 4 patents and more than 20 peer review journal publications.
Dr. Miloš Kostić
TECSR
Dr. Miloš Kostić (male) received his undergraduate degree, master's degree and the Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from University of Belgrade, Serbia in 2009, 2010 and 2014 respectively. He specialized in neurorehabilitation technologies, while the focus of his Ph.D. research was rehabilitation robotics. In July of 2014 he joined the Health Department of Tecnalia Research and innovation in Donostia-San Sebastián (Spain). There he was working as the lead project researcher in several successful projects in the domain of neurorehabilitation technologies and hybrid robotic-FES systems. Here he was focusing on implementation of co-development and early user involvement in medical device development, which has resulted in significant improvement of organisation’s R&D efforts. In 2017 he transferred to Tecnalia Serbia as a senior researcher on projects related to development and testing of hybrid clinical systems based on electrical stimulation. He coordinated three successful H2020 proposal preparation efforts and is a scientific and technology manager the SIXTHSENSE project, also financed under the H2020 program. His primary research interests are in electrical stimulation, quantitative multimodal assessment and improvement of early user involvement development methodologies.
Dr. Felipe Gomez
AXB
Dr. Felipe Gomez
AXB