Project Butterfly: Synergizing Immersive Virtual Reality with Actuated Soft Exosuit for Upper-Extremity Rehabilitation

Immersive Virtual Reality paired with soft robotics may be synergized to create personalized assistive therapy experiences. Virtual worlds hold power to stimulate the user with newly instigated low-cost, high-performance commercial Virtual Reality (VR) devices to enable engaging and accurate physical therapy. Soft robotic wearables are a versatile tool in such stimulation. This preliminary study investigates a novel rehabilitative VR experience, Project Butterfly (PBF), that synergizes VR Mirror Visual Feedback Therapy with soft robotic exoskeletal support. Nine users of ranging ability explore an immersive gamified physio-therapy experience by following and protecting a virtual butterfly, completed with an actuated robotic wearable that motivates and assists the user to perform rehabilitative physical movement. Specifically, the goals of this study are to evaluate the feasibility, ease-of-use, and comfort of the proposed system. The study concludes with a set of design considerations for future immersive physio-rehab robotic-assisted games.