Remote Control Architecture for Virtual Reality Application for Ankle Therapy

Worldwide, as the average life expectancy increases, the number of people in need of physical therapy rises. As a means of turning therapy more efficient and engaging, serious games have been developed for virtual reality environments. At the same time, in order to aid the user to perform the exercising movements, robotic devices have been employed along with these rehabilitation games. In the context of telerehabilitation, communication between devices is crucial since a seamless communication among many computers is a requisite. Having this in mind, this work proposes a remote control architecture for computers connected to the same local network, which will serve as a proof-of-concept for further applications where the communication among the robot device, the virtual reality application and other auxiliary computers is needed. This paper introduces briefly a robotic device for ankle rehabilitation and the control scheme, shows the development of a virtual reality racing game and introduces a third element, the physiotherapist computer, which can change remotely the robot resistance, thus increasing the game difficulty. It is crucial to guarantee that the physiotherapist has control over the robot parameters as well as access to the patients’ data in order to adapt their experience according to their performance.