Strokes are a leading cause of disability, with many survivors experiencing significant mobility impairments. While robot-assisted rehabilitation offers a promising solution, its adoption seems challenged by high upfront costs, low flexibility and complex configuration workflows. To address these challenges, this study conducts an interaction analysis to identify key requirements for empowering therapists to self-configure and adapt a flexible, cost-effective robot during gait rehabilitation tasks. Our analysis is based on 20 training sequences from a 60-hour video dataset collected across three experimental setups, involving young adults with motor impairments training with the assistance of the robot. Drawing methods from Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis (EMCA), we examined the sequential organization of actions between technology, therapist and participant, identifying three main stages: setup, training, and completion. During setup, coordinated actions prepare the participant and the robot for the main training task; during training, participant and robot engage in movement while the therapist iterates adjustments; and in completion, coordinated actions prepare the participant for transitioning back to their conventional support system. Our analysis highlights some requirements and strategies for developing End-User Development (EUD) environments for robot-assisted physiotherapy, emphasizing user-driven workflows, multimodal transitions between robot’s assistance modes, and real-time robotic feedback that maintains coherence with therapists’ practices. • Robot-assisted physical training follows a structured sequence with 3 main phases. • The gaze, speech, and touch of the therapists indicate transitions between phases. • Robot control modes adapt across phases to support evolving therapeutic goals. • Software engagement varies with each phase of therapy and the patient’s condition. • Therapists can adjust assistance settings before, during, and after active therapy.

Programming robots presents significant challenges, including high costs, extensive time commitments and steep learning curves, particularly for individuals lacking technical background in engineering. These barriers have been partially mitigated by the emergence of end-user development methodologies. Yet existing approaches often fall short in equipping users with the necessary software engineering competencies to develop comprehensive robot behaviors or to effectively maintain and re-purpose their creations. In this paper, we introduce a novel end-user development approach designed to empower physical therapists to independently specify robot-assisted physical training exercises, eliminating the need for robotics experts' intervention. Our approach is based on a set of design goals obtained through a participatory design study with experts in the field. It utilizes a textual domain-specific language (DSL) that enables users to define expected robot behaviors through Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD) scenarios. This paper discusses key themes, design objectives, and the evolution of requirements that emerged from an evaluative workshop.

Programming robots has long been an expensive and time-consuming task with a high barrier to entry for non-experts. The emergence of end-user development approaches for robotics has allowed to lower this barrier. Existing approaches, however, still lack proper software engineering techniques to allow the programming of fully functional robot behaviours and facilitate further maintenance and reuse of the programs developed by end users. In this work, we introduce a low-code approach for allowing physical trainers to program robot-assisted physical training activities without the assistance of a robotics engineer. The approach relies on a textual domain-specific language (DSL) to allow end users to specify the expected robot behaviour through Behaviour-Driven Development (BDD) scenarios.

In this paper we investigate the use of FPGAs to inject faults into data streams as a supplement to the international EMC-test standards. We aim to test the robustness and reliability of software based measures against the effects of electromagnetic interference. The proposed methodology, HEIST, uses high-speed acquisition of faulty data and high-speed fault injection. HEIST requires less insight into electromagnetism and electronics compared to other iterative EMC qualification processes. This is particularly relevant in designs where a strategy of 100% hardware-based noise avoidance is not feasible, and software based noise handling has been implemented as a supplement. Such situations are typical in mobile light-weight systems such as drones, where shielding and hardware filters add undesirable weight. The methodology is verified by comparing data from a serial communication link that has been exposed to burst noise based on the IEC 61000-4-4 test standard with data from the same setup, but replacing the burst generator with the HEIST approach. The result shows an excellent correlation indicating that HEIST can replace the burst generator for a software EMC test in an ongoing software development process.

This workshop is dedicated to discuss and explore the specific interdisciplinary aspects of Bodily human robot interaction, and establish a common ground for this area as a recognized and continued research topic. Bodily interaction with robots and robotic devices is partially established in niche applications such as exoskeletons, assistive devices and advanced machines for physical training where bodily interaction is the application. Bodily interaction is expected to develop a broader role in human robot interaction, for instance in manufacturing and in social and entertainment robotics. The direct exchange of force and motion in bodily interaction create a range of engineering challenges, but also entwine engineering directly with topics that traditionally reside in the realm of health and humanistic science, from biomechanics to human's social responses to the prompting and responses of physical interaction.

This paper presents a novel method for analyzing and designing kinesthetic interaction between humans and robots. The method is based on a combination of Social Embodied Interaction (SEI) analysis and Finite State Machine design. The method is presented along with its application to design and analyze an interactive training program for the robotic training device RoboTrainer-Light, with the objective of programming the robot so an optimal training pattern will emerge in the interaction, using only the exchange of force and motion to achieve this.

Training with a robotic training partner, is a physical, powerful, and yet intimate form of robot/human interaction (RHI). In this paper we report on the early stages of a project, that aims to study and use the human kinesthetic "language" of co-motion, used in physical human/robot interaction such as training.

In this paper, we demonstrate how a generic industrial robot can be used as a training partner, for upper limb training. The motion path and human/robot interaction of a non-generic upper-arm training robot is transferred to a generic industrial robot arm, and we demonstrate that the robot arm can implement the same type of interaction, but can expand the training regime to include both upper arm and shoulder training. We compare the generic robot to two affordable but custom-built training robots, and outline interesting directions for future work based on these training robots.

In experimental robotics, we are often faced with differing requirements between projects and as a project evolves, making the initial choice of technology difficult, often requiring a continuous and tedious development of the low-level parts of the robotic system. We propose the use of FPGAs as a flexible solution to these low-level issues; We here address the hitherto unresolved issue of interfacing the FPGA-based controllers to high-level robotics software running on a PC. This paper presents the Unity-Link software-gateware stack, which connects high-level software frameworks to our modular, FPGA-based generic hardware. Unity-Link provides simple, unified abstractions for quickly and easily interconnecting PC-based systems with nodes that provide hard real-time control of distributed robotic systems. Unity-Link uses a component-based modular bus structure based on open standards, and interfaces with a library of gateware components, enabling us to create complex applications quickly and efficiently. Automated code generation is used to provide convenient, application-specific interfaces to high-level robotics middleware such as ROS.

One of the major costs and inhibitors to practical robotics research is the time required for the creation of the embedded systems that implement the discrete event control in experimental robot systems. Using a standardized system architecture can reduce this time, but is often not feasible due to the rapidly varying requirements present in robotics research, and the considerable cost associated with implementing a full-blown standard. This often results in short-term ad-hoc solutions with low reusability and therefore high long-term cost to robotics labs. By utilizing the flexibility offered by reconfigurable electronics, in the form of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), we have arrived at an architecture for low-level control, which is flexible enough to bridge the traditional gaps between size, performance, topology, reusability, high-level integration, and ease of use. Several iterations, have led us to our current implementations: TosNet, which is optimized toward rapid prototyping in experimental modular robotics, and μTosNet, which has been optimized for simpler experiments and teaching. In this paper we present the overall concept and its background, as well as the two TosNet frameworks, examples of applications, and thoughts on dissemination and future work.

To sustain advanced interdisciplinary teaching and learning in the rapidly growing and diversifying field of robotics, we have successfully employed FPGA based System on Chip (SoC) technology to provide abstraction between high level software and low level I/O- and control hardware. Our approach is to provides students with a simple FPGA based framework for hardware access, and hardware I/O development, which is independent of computer platform and programming language, and enable the students to add to, or change I/O hardware in accordance with their skills. We have tested the framework in an embedded systems course and various student projects, and have found that it greatly enhance the students abilities to control hardware from software, and dramatically reduce the time spent on software ↔ hardware interfacing. As the framework is also scalable, it can support projects from controlling a single LED, to complex modular and aggregated robots with demands for high bandwidths and low jitter in the control loop.