This paper introduces a robotic rehabilitation system for upper limb therapy, utilizing a manipulator controlled through variable admittance control. The proposed approach allows dynamic modulation of the patient's mobility within a predefined spatial tolerance region, which is set by the therapist at the beginning of each session based on the patient's capabilities. The system adjusts movement constraints based on the applied force, promoting guidance along the intended path. Specifically, it supports motion along the path tangent while increasing resistance to deviations, but only when the applied force pushes the patient away from the trajectory. Conversely, when the movement is directed toward realignment, the system permits greater freedom in all directions that facilitate a return to the predefined path. To validate the proposed approach, an experimental study was conducted to analyze the system's behavior in practice. The results demonstrate the system's effectiveness in modulating movement assistance and resistance based on patient interaction, ensuring both guidance and adaptability within the rehabilitation process.

An accurate orientation estimation is a primary requirement in autonomous navigation tasks of mobile robots, especially when such operation is involved in the solution of the position estimation problem (e.g. dead reckoning navigation systems). This is the case of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), subject of this paper; for this class of robots, a complete attitude estimation system based on the adaptation of a Nonlinear Complementary Filter (NCF) is proposed. The presented filter fuses the measurements of an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) comprising magnetometers. The integration of a single-axis Fibre Optic Gyroscope (FOG) is evaluated to overcome issues due to magnetic disturbances. In addition, a calibration procedure for magnetometers to be exploited within the attitude estimation filter is proposed. The whole system has been experimentally validated and tested on the University of Florence Typhoon AUV; the results prove that the proposed approach allows to obtain a reliable orientation estimate even in the presence of external unpredictable disturbances.

In this paper, the development and the experimental testing phases of an innovative assistive device for hand disabilities are presented. This robotic device is based on an parallel kinematic chain applied to a single phalanx architecture and it is designed to be extremely portable to easily assist people with physical disabilities in their everyday lives. Focusing on patients with hand opening disabilities, the authors have developed a model-based methodology which starting from the motion capture of the patient fingertip trajectories is able to define the mechanism that better fits with such trajectories. The authors have validated the proposed innovative mechanism by developing a portable Hand Exoskeleton System (HES) prototype and performing a suitable preliminary testing campaign. The testing phase of the real prototype on a group of patients is currently ongoing.

Many dynamic simulators have been developed in the last thirty years for different types of vehicles. Flight simulators and drive simulators are very well known examples. This paper describes the design and implementation of a dynamic simulator for the testing of inertial sensors devoted to vehicle navigation through a Hardware-In-The-Loop test rig composed of an industrial robot and a commercially available Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). The authors are developing an innovative localization algorithm for railway vehicles which integrates inertial sensors with tachometers. The opportunity to set up a testing simulator capable of replicating in a realistic fashion the dynamic effects of the vehicle motion on inertial sensors allows to avoid expensive on board acquisitions and to speed up algorithm tuning. The real-time control architecture featured by the available industrial robot allows to precisely specify and execute motion trajectories with tight path and time law constraints required by the application at hand.