Z. Zenn Bien – författare

One of the major application targets of service robots is to use them as assistive devices for rehabilitation. This book introduces some latest achievements in the field of rehabilitation robotics and assistive technology for people with disabilities and aged people. The book contains results from both theoretical and experimental works and reviews on some new advanced rehabilitation devices which has been recently transferred to the industry. Significant parts of the book are devoted to the assessment of new rehabilitation technologies, the evaluation of prototype devices with end-users, the safety of rehabilitation robots, and robot-assisted neurorehabilitation. The book is a representative selection of the latest trends in rehabilitation robotics and can be used as a reference for teaching on mechatronic devices for rehabilitation.

We are living in a world full of innovations for the elderly and people with special needs to use smart assistive technologies and smart homes to more easily perform activities of daily living, to continue in social participation, to engage in entertainment and leisure activities, and to enjoy living independently. These innovations are inspired by new technologies leveraging all aspects of ambient and pervasive intel- gence with related theories, technologies, methods, applications, and services on ub- uitous, pervasive, AmI, universal, mobile, embedded, wearable, augmented, invisible, hidden, context-aware, calm, amorphous, sentient, proactive, post–PC, everyday, autonomic computing from the engineering, business and organizational perspectives. In the field of smart homes and health telematics, significant research is underway to enable aging and disabled people to use smart assistive technologies and smart homes to foster independent living and to offer them an enhanced quality of life. A smart home is a vision of the future where computers and computing devices will be available naturally and unobtrusively anywhere, anytime, and by different means in our daily living, working, learning, business, and infotainment environments. Such a vision opens tremendous opportunities for numerous novel services/applications that are more immersive, more intelligent, and more interactive in both real and cyber spaces.