Students – SmartAnkle

Axiles Bionics is a Belgian company specializing in the design of robotics, artificial intelligence, and human biomechanics. Founded in 2018 by 4 co-founders, Axiles Bionics emerged from 15 years of academic research at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). The goal is to revolutionize the field of prosthetics by offering innovative and high-performance solutions, utilizing advanced technologies to enable people to break free from their physical limitations. The main mission is to bring “Peace of Mind and Body” to users.
To achieve this, our prosthetics are designed to be high-performing, comfortable, and as accessible as possible. We aim to provide an alternative to traditional prosthetics by offering more dynamic solutions that better suit the needs of users.

BruBotics (www.brubotics.eu) is the multidisciplinary research institute on human-centered robotics of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. It unites several research groups from the VUB to collaborate on the topic of Human Robotics. Engineering, social studies, human physiology, artificial intelligence, ageing studies,…each of our 8 research groups have a unique point of view on Human Robotics.
The Brubotics team has world-class expertise on the design and control of robots for healthcare and safe human-robot interaction. They have developed next-generation robots such as exoskeletons (spin-off company HUSKK soon to be founded), bionic prostheses (with spin-off company Axiles Bionics), cobots and soft self-healing grippers with embedded sensing. Brubotics is widely recognized for its expertise in these domains and has participated in several European and national projects. BruBotics also boasts state-of-the-art facilities such as the VUB-Flanders Make AugmentX center, The Brussels Rehabilitation Research Center, and the AI Experience Center.

Ottobock develops “wearable human bionics” – medical technology products for people with limited mobility in the fields of Prosthetics, Orthotics and Human Mobility (wheelchairs). The company, founded in 1919, also treats patients in its Patient Care division. Ottobock’s mission: Enhancing the quality of life and health economic benefits of those they serve. With the Paexo exoskeletons, Ottobock has transferred its expertise in biomechanics to applications for industry as well since 2012. Subsidiaries in 59 countries offer “Made in Germany” quality worldwide and employ more than 7,000 people. The international activities of the company are coordinated from the head office in Duderstadt, Germany. Ottobock has been supporting the Paralympic Games with technical expertise since 1988.

Aalto University is a Finnish multidisciplinary university in the fields of science and technology, economics, architecture, and art and design. Aalto employs 386 professors and has a student body of 12 000 (FTE), 70 % of which are students in science and technology. The university was founded in 2010 by merging three Finnish universities: The Helsinki School of Economics, The University of Art and Design Helsinki, and Helsinki University of Technology. The three schools were all leading and renowned institutions in their respective fields and in their own right. Aalto University’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Automation is an ecosystem where scientists and engineers from different fields of microsystems, electrical engineering and automation work together to solve the most challenging scientific problems in the fields of energy and environment, as well as health and wellbeing.

The SmartANKLE Aalto team is comprised of three research groups. Bionic and Rehabilitation Engineering research group led by Prof. Ivan Vujaklija is one of the youngest groups in the department of Electrical Engineering at Aalto yet it has already been recognized for its impactful contribution to the areas of neuroprosthesis and wearable robot development. Sensor informatics and medical technology research group led by Prof. Simo Särkkä focuses to sensor informatics, adaptive signal processing, and data fusion systems especially for medical applications. Both groups, through their respective research, are actively contributing and participating in the activities of the Aalto Center for Autonomous Systems (ACAS). Moreover, Prof. Särkkä leader the AI for Health section of the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence (FCAI) in which Prof. Vujaklija is an active member. Electronics integration and reliability research group led by Prof. Mervi Paulasto-Kröckel, conducts research on new materials, three-dimensional integration and reliability of electronics, and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). The group is located in Micronova and uses the available cutting-edge infrastructure for advanced nanofabrication, nanomicroscopy, and low-noise measurement facilities.

Tecnalia Serbia LTD is a company based in Belgrade that is 100% in ownership of Fundacion Tecnalia Research & Innovation (TECNALIA), a private, independent, non-profit applied research centre of international excellence. Legally a Foundation, Tecnalia is the leading private and independent research and technology organisation in Spain and one of the largest in Europe. The office in Serbia was founded in 2008 to serve as a technology acceleration unit inside the Health Department focusing on medical technologies for neurorehabilitation. It is providing consulting and research and development services in both basic and applied research, offering transference of technology and knowledge, collaboration with a range of enterprises in the application area. One of the key colaboration networks is with relevant hospitals and rehabilitation clinics which allows our RnD activities to encorporate early user involvement and validation in relevant environment, alowing for more streamlined development of technologies that can be more easily transferred to targeted indutries.

Tecnalia Serbia LTD has been providing services and expertise in a variety of research projects of TECNALIA for development of biomedical instrumentation and technologies in fields spanning from neurorehabilitation and rehabilitation in general, to biomaterials and electrochemical sensors. In most of those projects Tecnalia Serbia was involved in all the steps of the research process, from the initial idea and preparing of the project proposal, development of electronics and system components, defining the research protocol and preparing experiments, in vitro, in vivo and clinical testing of the system prototypes, data analysis and extraction of relevant results and dissemination of results. From its creation, Tecnalia Serbia was exclusively working in projects funded by a private venture capital initiative FIK which ended in 2018. Since then it was free to compete for public funding and has gained eight research grants within the H2020/HEU framework. In all of these projects Tecnalia Serbia leads the RnD efforts in systems for elecrtrophysilogical and electrochemical measurement and electrostimulation based actuation. The success of the office and the performed research during previous 15 years is also shown by the number of patents (>5) and publications (>100), coming from small but highly proficient team.

Tecnalia Serbia LTD has active research collaboration with three top Serbian Universities and four relevant hospitals and clinics. Personnel of Tecnalia Serbia LTD comprises four PhDs in Electrical Engineering, two PhD candidates awaiting their disseration defence and a nubmer of PhD students.

University College Dublin (UCD) is one of Europe’s leading research-intensive universities. UCD is the national leader in research funding, attracting quality investment that has helped the university to establish a reputation as a world-class destination for leading researchers. UCD is ranked within the top 1% of higher education institutions worldwide. UCD is Ireland’s largest University and Ireland’s most globally engaged university with over 33,000 students drawn from 144 countries, including almost 4,000 students based at locations outside of Ireland. As Ireland’s Global University, UCD pursues four strategic themes: Creating a Sustainable Global Society; Transforming through Digital Technology; Building a Healthy World; and Empowering Humanity. These strategic themes shape UCDs research, teaching and learning. The University has a highly developed support structure for its research, including finance, management and innovation. NovaUCD is the hub of innovation-related activities specialising in addressing the innovation, commercialisation and impact of the research emerging from the university.

The UCD SmartANKLE team is constituted by Dr. Giacomo Severini and Dr. Donal Holland, who co-direct the Rehabilitation Engineering and Robotics Laboratory (RERLab). The research aim at RERLab is that of developing novel technological solutions for rehabilitation, with a particular interest in Robotics. The work of the lab spans from Human Motor Control, to Robotics, to Mechanical Design, to Engineering Education. The RERLab has received > 1.5M in competitive funding from Science Foundation Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, the Irish Research Council, UCD and the European Union.

Eduardo Saman Sakkal

Aurora Silanos

James Flack

Sinan Coruk

Madalina Moscu

Marta Mirkov