Abstract: Biorobotics

This paper deals with Biorobotics. Biorobotics is a new scientific and

technological area, created from a combination of mechanics, electronics
and IT with biology, capable of offering unforeseeable diagnostic and
therapeutic instruments, not only within the healthcare framework but also
for an improved quality of life. The reciprocal sharing of knowledge enables
one to evaluate the actual importance of each single reality, the possibility
of using results through elimination of all mental, logic or behavioural
blockages.
Biorobotics is an emerging discipline that merges biomedical engineering
and robotics. Biorobotics is the science and engineering of robotics applied
in the Biomedical field, with the development of biomedical devices for
surgery and rehabilitation, as well as with the modelling of biological
systems. In this sense, biorobotics is also the construction of physical
models of the biological systems, as bioinspired and biomimetic robots.
Although most technologies are derived from robotics at large, biorobotics
possesses some distinguishing features in terms of methodology of design
that deserve to be approached apart from robotics. Biorobotics represents
today a field of evolution for biomedical engineering and for robotics, and
the ideal ground for educating young engineers, by breaking the traditional
barriers among the engineering sectors and those of biological sciences
and medicine.
The developed researches of biorobotics, as an instrument for the
maintenance of the quality of human senses, complete control of the
nervous system, activation of neuron circuits, recovery of damaged
neuromotor functions, rehabilitation of vocal chords, and neuromotor
system control following devastating diseases such as Parkinson’s and
Alzheimer’s. An application of biorobotics is here presented: DDX is an
experimental biorobotic system designed to acquire and provide data about
human finger movement, applied in the analysis of neural disturbances with
quantitative evaluation of both response times and dynamic action of the
patient. The goal of the biorobotic system is to measure the response
parameters of a person in front of a “soft touch”, made by his finger in front
of a button. It is now applied in daily clinical activity to diagnose the
progression of the Parkinson pathology.