Overview: Advances in soft wearable robotics and machine learning are enabling new approaches to assist and assess human movement, particularly for aging populations and individuals with neurological impairments. Dr. Conor Walsh and his team at the Harvard Biodesign Lab have developed a suite of soft robotic systems designed to support mobility, rehabilitation, and functional independence in real-world settings.
Their work includes soft exosuits that assist with hip flexion to reduce freezing of gait in individuals with Parkinson’s disease, demonstrating improved stride regulation and community mobility. In stroke rehabilitation, soft robotic gloves and upper-limb assistive devices enable high-frequency, home-based therapy, supported by embedded sensors and remote monitoring. Machine learning models personalize control strategies by interpreting motion and interaction forces, enabling intuitive, user-driven assistance.
For lower-limb rehabilitation, robotic ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs) are being developed to dynamically support plantar and dorsiflexion, with machine learning models trained to estimate propulsion metrics from wearable sensors. Additionally, the team is exploring AI-driven estimation of clinical assessments, such as the Fugl-Meyer score, using minimal sensor data and simple reaching tasks.
These innovations highlight the potential of integrating soft robotics with AI to deliver scalable, personalized, and data-driven care, bridging the gap between clinical and home environments and enhancing functional independence for individuals with mobility impairments.
Conor Walsh, PhD, Paul A. Maeder Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the John A. Paulson Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Founder Harvard Biodesign Lab
About the Speaker: Conor Walsh is the Paul A. Maeder Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at the John A. Paulson Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and an Associate Faculty Member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. He is the is the founder of the Harvard Biodesign Lab, which brings together researchers from the engineering, industrial design, apparel, biomechanics, physical therapy and business communities to develop and translate new disruptive robotic technologies for augmenting and restoring human performance. Example application areas include, enhancing the mobility of healthy individuals, restoring the mobility of patients with gait deficits, assisting those with upper extremity weakness to perform activities of daily living and preventing injuries of workers performing physically strenuous tasks.
His multidisciplinary research spans engineering, biology and medicine and has led to multiple high impact scientific papers. The soft exosuit technology is now commercially available in clinics for gait retraining through a collaboration with ReWalk Robotics and a lab spin-out, Verve Motion, has launched a back assist product for workers performing physically strenuous tasks in industry. He has been invited to give talks at government, industry and academic events and has served on research review panels including the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. He is dedicated to training the next generation of biomedical engineering innovators and lab alumni have gone on to successful careers in academia, entrepreneurship, and high tech R&D positions in industry.
Additionally, he co-founded the Soft Robotics Toolkit that serves as a platform the lab’s extensive STEM outreach activities. He is the winner of multiple awards including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the Early Academic Career Award in Robotics and Automation from the IEEE RAS, the National Science Foundation Career Award and the MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35 Award.
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/conor-walsh-1247234/
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.ch/citations?user=sKSTKAoAAAAJ&hl=en