During the lifespan of the project, the CLs++ consortium achieved relevant results from three different perspectives, namely: (i) scientific and technological, (ii) economic viability assessment of the developed technologies, and (iii) dissemination and exploitation of the project results.
About the scientific and technological achievements, CLs++ team designed and developed two new generations (namely 1st- and 2nd-generation) of the following devices/technologies:
- active, modular transfemoral prosthesis (ATP; the 2nd generation was also called X-Leg),
- Active Pelvis Orthosis (APO), an exoskeleton for assisting hip flexion-extension,
- Active Knee Orthosis (AKO): the 1st generation was developed to operate as an optional additive module of the APO; the 2nd generation is battery-operated and fully portable, and usable as a standing alone device,
- Wearable Sensory Apparatus (WSA) that comprises a pair of instrumented shoes endowed with pressure-sensitive insoles and a set of Inertial Measurement Units that can be attached to body segments to monitor users’ movements and allow the decoding of their intended movement,
- Bidirectional Interface (BI), which is a non-invasive, portable augmenting feedback device embedding vibrotactile stimulation units to promote a more physiological gait pattern,
- Intention Detection (ID) algorithms for the APO and the X-LEG,
- Fall Risk Mitigation control strategy, mediated by the APO, meant to assist users when multidirectional slippages or tripping are detected,
- a bio-inspired control framework for governing the behaviour of the different hardware modules, reproducing key mechanisms of human locomotion, such as: motor primitives, muscle-like impedance, central pattern generation, and iterative learning.
The consortium also developed a truly new unilateral battery-operated, fully portable hip exoskeleton (called Single Hip Active Joint Aide, SHAJA), extremely light-weighted (about <3.5 kg including batteries and electronics), for hip flexion-extension assistance.
In addition to the activities of design and development, a thorough experimentation of the developed prototypes was carried out through a two-stage two-centre clinical investigation. The first stage targeted the 1st-generation of CLs++ technology. The second stage targeted the 2nd-genearation of CLs++ technology. Both experimentations were: (i) held in two sites, namely at Fondazione Don Gnocchi, and at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, (ii) organized in two main protocols, which focused on CLs++ APO and X-Leg, and different ancillary protocols, devoted to specific modules, such as the AKO, the sensory feedback module, the algorithm for fall-risk mitigation, and bioinspired control strategies. Overall, about 40 (including healthy subjects and patients) volunteers were involved in the experimentations.
During the lifespan of the project, a significant attention has been paid by the consortium to the assessment of the economic viability of the developed technologies. By leveraging on collected clinical data and a deep analysis of the state of the art, the consortium has elaborated a multifaceted business model for the cost-effectiveness analysis of the developed technologies, from the perspective of all stakeholders involved in their future adoption.
The CLs++ consortium has been quite active in promoting the work done in the project; hereafter some relevant figures:
- 26 journals papers,
- 37 conference papers,
- 9 chapters of book,
- organization of 6 international workshops,
- attendance with/without contribution of 38 workshops/conferences/events
- co-promotion of 3 special issues in ISI indexed journals,
- 10 press mentions,
- 1 blog post,
- 8 events attended with a promotional stand / live demonstration.
Throughout the duration of the project, the CLs++ consortium has devoted attention to foster exploitation of project results. During the first half, most of the attention was focused on promoting the exploitation of the APO technology: a detailed strategy to exploit the hip exoskeleton technology has been elaborated, and two product development projects promptly started with objectives and funds defined outside the scope of the CLs++ project. During the second part, the consortium elaborated the exploitation strategy of all remaining technologies.
