HeAL9000: an intelligent rehabilitation robot

AI applications to health related processes include the adoption of robotic platforms for rehabilitation, aiming at the delivery of highly intensive, repeatable and accurate motion therapies and able to constantly monitor the patient and provide the suitable assistance levels. However, a comprehensive approach to robot-aided rehabilitation requires also a social level of interaction with the patient that implies cognitive modeling and linguistic communication. It is worth noticing that robotic platforms providing both physical and cognitive support to patients have not been proposed so far. In the HeAL9000 project an intelligent robot for rehabilitation of patients affected by musculoskeletal disorders is proposed with cognitive and linguistic abilities. It relies strongly on machine learning technologies whose aim is to support cost effective engineering of the platform as well as evolving capabilities across time. In the paper early experimental evidence is acquired through quantitative evaluation.