A walker that won’t let you fall

Wearable robots are enabling the rehabilitation of people with mobility issues

At a recent mega tech event organised by Microsoft in Bengaluru, a small stall set up by a relatively young company grabbed the attention of Satya Nadella, CEO of the Redmond-headquartered technology giant. Bionic Yantra, a robotic company, which aims to restore mobility in severely injured people, was showcasing a wearable robotic exoskeleton that enables rehabilitation of patients with mobility issues.

Nadella was impressed with what he saw. “It (Bionic Yantra) is building an exoskeleton robot for someone with spinal cord injury or cerebral palsy (CP). They are already working with a hospital in the United States to get these out and really revolutionise what happens in physical therapy,” said Nadella.

“One of the biggest challenges, especially for kids growing up with CP, is that an exoskeleton has to change as they grow. We have talked about personalisation in ecommerce, but just think about exoskeleton robots that are personalised for someone with CP, and what a life-changing thing that can be,” Nadella added.

According to the World Health Organization, more than one billion people worldwide suffer from some form of locomotion disability. Recovery and rehabilitation in case of serious conditions such as a stroke or milder conditions like knee replacement and support for senior citizens is neither affordable nor fallsafe. Each disease needs a specific device, thus pushing up costs. What’s more, patients are often required to be carried to therapy centres.

Bionic Yantra is aiming to address these problems. The Bengaluru-based firm’s ‘robotic exoskeleton assisted rehabilitation system’ (REARS) is a powered, intelligent device that provides calibrated support and on-demand assistance for limb movement during rehabilitation.

REARS is a combination of two robotic sub-systems — a mobile robot, which is basically a body weight system or BWS, and a wearable robot (or exoskeleton) with a common control system and power supply. This enables 100 per cent fall-safe, on-ground walking for even fragile patients with weak upper bodies.

“We have mimicked the human gait. The (patient) does not walk like a robot. That is a big advantage of our (technology),” said Shivakumar Nagarajan, co-founder of Bionic Yantra. “Using a common control system, the two robots work in synchrony, and that is the core technology.”

An alumnus of NIT Surathkal and IIM Lucknow, Nagarajan cofounded Bionic Yantra in 2017 along with Vaidyanathan Narayanan, an alumnus of Bangalore University. The company board also comprises C S Kedar, a former Indian

Administrative Services officer.

Bionic Yantra’s rehab platform is a single product addressing a wide spectrum of conditions. These include long-term conditions such as stroke, spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy and cardiopulmonary issues. It also caters to short-term conditions like dual leg fractures, hip and knee replacements, obesity and so on. It can replace several disparate systems such as fall-safe harness, exoskeleton, body weight support system and reduce the number of therapists needed to monitor the patients, and this enhances its value manifold.

Using machine learning and the Internet of Things (IOT) technology, Bionic Yantra’s advanced approaches are enabling data trails for patient authenticity and progress achieved. It also predicts patient recovery as its IOT device automatically documents the progress of the patient.

“The IOT device records all the data, stores it and can send it to the cloud. After collecting appropriate amounts of data, you can predict that a particular patient after a certain number of weeks will recover to this specific point,” said Nagarajan. “We are now focusing on software and data and that is where Microsoft is going to play a (key) role.” Bionic Yantra is building its innovation on top of Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. The company has been granted a US patent for its unique design. What is remarkable is that the product was fully designed and built in India in a record time of just over two years.

The firm has a collaboration with Shirley Ryan Ability Lab (SRAL) in Chicago (formerly Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago), a leader in robotic rehabilitation, to enable proper medical protocols to be embedded in the device. It has also signed Mous with leading institutions in India such as the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-sciences (NIMHANS) and Iit-bombay.

Using machine learning and the Internet of Things technology, Bionic Yantra’s advanced walkers ( pictured) are enabling data trails for patient authenticity and progress achieved