Dr. Konstantin Sonkin
The project
Smart Robotic Device for Enhancing Motor and Cognitive Learning of Children with Special Needs
Innovative technological solutions for assisting and supporting learning in children with special needs should be developed in order to satisfy a huge unmet demand. This project aims to develop an environment and a device to enhance motor and cognitive learning of children with movement and cognitive impairments, through a real-time direct human-robot interaction system based on decoding of EEG signals and movement recordings performed by AI techniques.
The developing system allows children to interact in a fun way with a 3-D printed mobile robot controlled by their brain and body signals. The project has three main goals: 1) make learning for children with special needs personalized and playful, 2) perform simultaneous motor and cognitive learning, and 3) make the solution affordable through 3-D printed robots and off-the-shelf electronics.
Within the scope of the project the full prototype has been built: a 3-D printed robot controlled by the software system, which translates data from wireless EEG and motion sensors into control commands for the robot. The continuation of the project will aim to develop a ready-to-use minimum viable solution for motor and cognitive learning for people with special needs and test it in the specific target population of individuals with cerebral palsy.