Paolo Dario

• Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies

Educational robotics (ER) uses robotic kits as a channel for education and collaborative learning in a play setting. Thanks to adaptability of robots, ER could facilitate inclusion of special-needs children, such as children with Down syndrome (DS), in learning programs. In a previous study, we provided evidence that ER could promote superior cogni...

This review aims to present a picture of the state of the art in terms of theoretical frameworks and applications concerning Information and Communication Technologies and their use on Mild Cognitive Impairment subjects. A particular attention was focused on their use regarding the neuropsychological assessment, the cognitive training and assistive...

Background: Significant results have been shown when an upper limb robot-assisted rehabilitation is delivered to stroke patients. Objective: To evaluate the effects of upper limb robot-assisted rehabilitation on motor recovery in stroke patients who underwent a treatment based on a haptic device. Methods: Thirty-nine stroke patients (twenty-th...

Actuation is essential for artificial machines to interact with their surrounding environment and to accomplish the functions for which they are designed. Over the past few decades, there has been considerable progress in developing new actuation technologies. However, controlled motion still represents a considerable bottleneck for many applicatio...

An optical coupler (40) for providing an optical path between a number of optical fibers (30) and corresponding optical devices (170), the optical coupler comprising a plurality of apertures (160) arranged for receiving the plurality of fibers and having a set of reflectors (150) aligned with the apertures such that optical paths to or from an end...

Colorectal cancer (CRC) represents a significant medical threat with a dramatic impact on the healthcare system with around 1.3 million patients worldwide, causing more than 700 thousand deaths annually. A key-aspect to successful and cost-effective disease management is represented by the early detection of CRC at asymptomatic stage. For this reas...

Activity Recognition is important in assisted living applications to monitor people at home. Over the past, inertial sensors have been used to recognize different activities, spanning from physical activities to eating ones. Over the last years, supervised methods have been widely used, but they require an extensive labeled dataset to train the alg...

This paper introduces HighChest, an innovative smart freezer designed to promote energy efficient behavior and the responsible use of food. Introducing a novel human–machine interface (HMI) design developed through assessment phases and a user involvement stage, HighChest is state of the art, featuring smart services that exploit embedded sensors a...

Information and Communication Technology and personal robots could play a fundamental role in efficiently managing chronic diseases and avoiding improper medications. They could support senior citizens with reminders, thus promoting their independent living and quality of life, especially in the presence of several chronic diseases (multimorbidity)...

Older people would like to live independently in their home as long as possible. They want to reduce the risk of domestic accidents because of polypharmacy, physical weakness and other mental illnesses, which could increase the risks of domestic accidents (i.e. a fall). Changes in the behaviour of healthy older people could be correlated with cogni...

In this paper, we describe a human posture classification and a falling detector module suitable for smart homes and assisted living solutions. The system uses a neural network that processes the human joints produced by a skeleton tracker using the depth streams of an RGB-D sensor. The neural network is able to recognize standing, sitting and lyin...

CareToy system is an innovative tele-rehabilitative tool, useful in providing intensive, individualized, home-based, family-centred Early Intervention (EI) in infants. Our aim was to evaluate, through a Randomized Clinical Trial (RCT) study, the effects of CareToy intervention on early motor and visual development in preterm infants. 41 preterm inf...

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common and deadliest forms of cancer, accounting for nearly 10% of all forms of cancer in the world. Even though colonoscopy is considered the most effective method for screening and diagnosis, the success of the procedure is highly dependent on the operator skills and level of hand-eye coordination. In th...

This paper describes a system based on a robot, called KuBo, which relies on cloud resources to extend its capabilities for human interaction and environmental sensing to provide services for independent living. The robot uses text-to-speech and speech recognition services as well as an electronic agenda and web resources to perform several tasks....

Neuroscientific studies show that humans tend to stabilize their head orientation, while accomplishing a locomotor task. This is beneficial to image stabilization and in general to keep a reference frame for the body. In robotics, too, head stabilization during robot walking provides advantages in robot vision and gaze-guided locomotion. In order t...

Educational Robotics (ER) is known for its effects on academic achievement and scientific concepts. Few studies have demonstrated ER effects on cognitive skills and no evidence exists on the role of ER in promoting Executive Functions, key elements in early school readiness and cognitive milestone achievements. The aim of this study was to evaluate...

The technological advances in the robotic and ICT fields represent an effective solution to address specific societal problems to support ageing and independent life. One of the key factors for these technologies is the integration of service robotics for optimising social services and improving quality of life of the elderly population. This chapt...

Background: Cardiovascular diseases are the first cause of death globally: an estimated 17.5 million people died in 2012. By combining the benefits of magnetic navigation and ultrasound (US) imaging, the authors proposed a robotic platform (i.e. the MicroVAST platform) for intravascular medical procedures. Methods: A 3D imaging US-based tracking...

We demonstrate an improved method for utilizing observed gaze behavior and show that it is useful in inferring hand movement intent during goal directed tasks. The task dynamics and the relationship between hand and gaze behavior are learned using an Abstract Hidden Markov Model (AHMM). We show that the predicted hand movement transitions occur con...

Human activity recognition plays an important role in the context of Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), providing useful tools to improve people quality of life. This work presents an activity recognition algorithm based on the extraction of skeleton joints from a depth camera. The system describes an activity using a set of few and basic postures extr...

Statement of significance: This study reports for the first time the results of a systematic acoustic characterization of agarose, polyacrylamide and polydimethylsiloxane at different concentrations and cross-linking extents and doped with different concentrations of barium titanate nanoparticles. These results can be used to build tissue-mimickin...

Recognition of activities of daily living plays an important role in monitoring elderly people and helping caregivers in controlling and detecting changes in daily behaviors. Thanks to the miniaturization and low cost of Microelectromechanical systems (MEMs), in particular of Inertial Measurement Units, in recent years body-worn activity recognitio...

The recent years have witnessed great achievements in medical robotic devices, and further challenges will come and need to be conquered for more technically advanced and acceptable medical robotic devices. Magnetic-based approaches are highly promising to provide solutions for the new generation of medical robotic devices, due to the desirable cha...

Two main classes of reflexes relying on the vestibular system are involved in the stabilization of the human gaze: the vestibulocollic reflex (VCR), which stabilizes the head in space and the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR), which stabilizes the visual axis to minimize retinal image motion. Together they keep the image stationary on the retina. In th...

In vitro tissues are significant biological substitute for drug test, cell morphogenesis exploration and organ transplantation. In this letter, a novel microrobotic bioassembly method is proposed to engineer 3-D cellular structure, which can be utilized to culture in vitro tissue with microstructural features. A microrobotic system is set up under...

Older persons would like to live independently in their home as long as possible. They want to reduce the risk of domestic accidents because of polypharmacy, physical weakness and other mental illness which can increase the risks of domestic accidents (i.e. fall). Changes in the behavior of healthy older persons could be correlated with cognitive d...

This paper presents a novel multifunctional pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM) with bi-directional force and motion capabilities. PAM's are generally preferred due to their high power to weight ratio, light weight, ease of installation, hazard free use and inherent compliance To demonstrate the concept, a prototype of the bi-directional artificial m...

Early intervention programs aim at improving cognitive and motor outcomes of preterm infants. Intensive custom-tailored training activities are usually accompanied by assessment procedures, which have shortcomings, such as subjectivity, complex setups, and need for structured environments. A novel sensorized system, called CareToy, was designed to...

Background: CareToy is an intelligent system, inspired by baby gyms, aimed to provide an intensive, individualized, home-based and family-centred early intervention (EI) program. Aims: A pilot study was carried out to explore the feasibility of CareToy intervention in preterm infants, aged 3-9 months of corrected age. Methods: Twenty low-risk...

Does a robot producer, owner or user need insurance policy? What kind of risks derive from the use of robots? Are there any differences between insuring a robot and another product? And finally, who should bear the burden of paying the insurance premium? The objective of this article is to provide the reader with an overview on the issue of risk ma...

In the future, social robots will permeate our daily life. An autonomous robot that has to move among different buildings needs to manage huge amount of data, as a consequence it is clear that the configuration of the navigation system becomes hard to manage. This paper presents a system, based on a cloud robotics paradigm, conceived to allow auton...

Digestive diseases are a major burden for society and healthcare systems, and with an aging population, the importance of their effective management will become critical. Healthcare systems worldwide already struggle to insure quality and affordability of healthcare delivery and this will be a significant challenge in the midterm future. Wireless c...

Technological innovation in robotics and ICT represents an effective solution to tackle the challenge of providing social sustainable care services for the ageing population. The recent introduction of cloud technologies is opening new opportunities for the provisioning of advanced robotic services based on the cooperation of a number of connected...

In this paper, a vision-based haptic feedback system has been proposed with the aim to assist the movement of an endoscopic device during capsule endoscopy (CE) procedures. We present a general system architecture consisting of three modules responsible for vision, haptic guidance and control of movements. The vision module generates 3D local maps...

Magnetic based strategies are promising to provide solutions for new medical robotic devices. In this paper, we derive an analytical approach for magnetic flux modeling and calculation of force/torque formulas based on a current model. This work is useful for the magnetic design and interaction analysis of medical devices, e.g. for endoscopic proce...

Two main classes of reflexes relying on the vestibular system are involved in the stabilization of the human gaze: the vestibulocollic reflex (VCR), which stabilizes the head in space and the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR), which stabilizes the visual axis to minimize retinal image motion. The VOR works in conjunction with the opto-kinetic reflex (O...

Abstract: Purpose: In this paper an innovative kinematic control algorithm is proposed for redundant robotic manipulators. The algorithm takes advantage of a bio-inspired approach. Design/methodology/approach: A simplified 2 DOFs model is presented to handle kinematic redundancy in the x-y plane; an extension to three-dimensional tracking tasks is...

Purpose Interaction plays a significant role in robotics and it is considered in all levels of hardware and software control design. Several models have been introduced and developed for controlling robotic interaction. This study aims to address and analyze the state-of-the-art on robotic interaction control by which it is revealed that both pract...

This article describes the design of an innovative system for early intervention (EI) at home in infancy. The aim is to develop a smart device capable of promoting and measuring the actions of infants in the first months of life. The CareToy system, inspired by a commercially available gym for infants and equipped with a variety of sensors, can pro...

End stage heart failure patients could benefit from left ventricular assist device (LVAD) implantation as bridge to heart transplantation or as destination therapy. However, LVAD suffers from several limitations, including the presence of a battery as power supply, the need for cabled connection from inside to outside the patient, and the lack of a...

The growth of medical robotics since the mid-1980s has been striking. From a few initial efforts in stereotactic brain surgery, orthopaedics, endoscopic surgery, microsurgery, and other areas, the field has expanded to include commercially marketed, clinically deployed systems, and a robust and exponentially expanding research community. This chapt...

This work aims to demonstrate the possibility to fabricate ultra-thin polymeric films loaded with an anti-restenotic drug and capable of tunable drug release kinetics for the local treatment of restenosis. Vascular nanopatches are composed of a poly(lactic acid) supporting membrane (thickness: ~250 nm) on which 20 polyelectrolyte bilayers (overall...

Morphological and surface characterization of PLLA nanofilms. Notes: (A) Comparison between the hydrophilic behavior of PLLA and the one of PLLA(BaTiO3) nanofilms over time. (B) Water contact angle (evidenced in red) imaged at different time-points after plasma treatment, for a PLLA sample. Abbreviations: PLLA, poly(l-lactic acid); h, hours.

In vitro control tests. Notes: Fluorescence images of nHDFs (left pictures) and SMCs (right pictures), respectively, on PLLA/PE (A, C) and on PLLA(BaTiO3)/PE (B, D) samples without DB103 after 72 hours. Scale bars =100 µm. (E) DNA quantification for nHDFs (left) and SMCs (right), to evaluate their proliferation rate over PLLA/PE and PLLA(BaTiO3)/PE...

Drug synthesis and characterization. Notes: (A) Structural formula of DB103; (B) calibration curve shows the autofluorescence of DB103: RFU are reported for different compound concentrations. Abbreviations: RFU, relative fluorescence unit; DB103, anti-restenotic drug used in this study.

PFM images of PPLN sample, referred to (A) topography, data, amplitude, and phase. (B) Profiles of data, amplitude, and phase. (C) Superimposed images for topography/amplitude and topography/phase. AFM scans are 45×45 µm2. The scale bar is 2 µm. Abbreviations: AFM, atomic force microscopy; PFM, piezoresponse force microscopy; PPLN, periodically pol...

Piezoelectric characterization of PLLA(BaTiO3)/PE and PLLA/PE samples. Notes: 3D PFM images of (A) PLLA(BaTiO3)/PE and (B) PLLA/PE samples regarding topography and topography superimposed by amplitude and phase signals. AFM scans are 5×5 µm2. Abbreviations: AFM, atomic force microscopy; PE, polyelectrolyte; PFM, piezoresponse force microscopy; PLLA...

Drug release kinetics data fitting by using MATLAB. Abbreviations: PE, polyelectrolyte; PLLA, poly(l-lactic acid); US, ultrasound; h, hours.

This work reports the fabrication, magnetic characterization and controlled navigation of film-shaped microrobots consisting of a polydimethylsiloxane-NdFeB powder composite material. The fabrication process relies on spin-coating deposition, powder orientation and permanent magnetization. Films with different powder concentrations (10 %, 30 %, 50...

The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) into our daily lives has the potential to significantly improve the quality of life and well-being of citizens, especially older adults who want to continue to live independently in their own home. In order to realise the potential of IoT in the real-world, there are four major concerns that should be con...

OBJECTIVES: The aim of the paper is to analyze the needs and attitude of elderly people towards technology, as a prelude for designing and testing new healthcare and assistance services. METHODS: Focus groups and questionnaires administered in Tuscany (Italy) to a) over 65 resident in their home, living alone, with no cognitive impediments; b) fo...

This paper presents a work on mapping the use of space by humans in long periods of time. Daily geometric maps with the same coordinate frame were generated with SLAM, and in a similar manner, daily affordance density maps (places people use) were generated with the output of a human tracker running on the robot. The contribution of the paper is tw...

Introduction: Merging robotics with laser eye surgery could enhance precision, repeatability and automation. During some eye laser procedures the patient is awake, thus eye stabilization is desired to avoid movements that could affect the treatment. Material and methods: The ESPRESSO platform has a two-stage actuation system to position a stabil...

This paper presents a work on mapping the use of space by humans in long periods of time. Daily geometric maps with the same coordinate frame were generated with SLAM, and in a similar manner, daily affordance density maps (places people use) were generated with the output of a human tracker running on the robot. The contribution of the paper is tw...

Wireless capsule endoscopic devices are adopted for painless diagnosis of cancer and other diseases affecting the gastrointestinal tract as an alternative to traditional endoscopy. Although much work has been done to improve capsule performance in terms of active navigation, a major drawback is the limited available energy on board the capsule, usu...

The technological advances in the robotic and ICT fields represent an effective solution to address specific societal problems to support ageing and independent life. One of the key factors for these technologies is the integration of service robotics for optimising social services and improving quality of life of the elderly population. This chapt...

Background: The visual assessment of infants poses specific challenges: many techniques that are used on adults are based on the patient's response, and are not suitable for infants. Significant advances in the eye-tracking have made this assessment of infant visual capabilities easier, however, eye-tracking still requires the subject's collaborat...

This paper aims to demonstrate the possibility of exploiting poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA) ultra-thin films as platforms for bio-hybrid actuation. Firstly, flat PLLA nanofilms at different concentrations (15 and 25 mg/ml in dichloromethane) were tested with contractile cardiomyocytes. The results obtained using motion vector analysis, a non-invasive me...

Wearable systems for remote monitoring of physiological parameter are ready to evolve towards wearable imaging systems. The Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) allows the non-invasive investigation of the internal body structure. The characteristics of this low-resolution and lowcost technique match perfectly with the concept of a wearable imagin...

Preterm infants, i.e. babies born after a gestation period shorter than 37 weeks, spend less time exploring objects. The quantitative measurement of grasping actions and forces in infants can give insights on their typical or atypical motor development. The aim of this work was to test a new tool, a kit of sensorized toys, to longitudinally measur...

Lab-on-a-chip applications, such as single cell manipulation and targeted delivery of chemicals, could greatly benefit from mobile untethered microdevices able to move in fluidic environments by using magnetic fields. In this paper a magnetically driven microrobotic system enabling the controlled locomotion of objects placed at the air/liquid inter...

This work aims to demonstrate the feasibility of a novel approach for the development of 3D self-assembled polydimethylsiloxane structures, to be used as engineered flexible matrices for bio-hybrid actuation. We described the fabrication of engineered bilayers, organized in a 3D architecture by means of a stress-induced rolling membrane technique....

Recently we have assisted to the rise of different Social Networks, and to the growth of robots for home applications, which represent the second big market opportunity. The use and the integration of robotics services in our daily life is strictly correlated with their usability and their acceptability. Particularly, their ease of use, among other...

The European project Robot-Era is an ambitious integrated project (FP7-ICT-2011.5.4), which objective is the development of advanced robotic services, integrated in intelligent environments, to provide independent living to older people. In order to guarantee the matching of the users’ need and the demands, two loops of experimentation were conceiv...

Recently we have assisted to the rise of different Social Networks, and to the growth of robots for home applications, which represent the second big market opportunity. The use and the integration of robotics services in our daily life is strictly correlated with their usability and their acceptability. Particularly, their ease of use, among other...

Respiratory problems are among the main causes of mortality for preterm newborns with pulmonary diseases; mechanical ventilation provides standard care, but long-term complications are still largely reported. In this framework, continuous medical education is mandatory to correctly manage assistance devices. However, commercially available neonatal...

The bioartificial pancreas (BAP) represents a viable solution for the treatment of Type 1 Diabetes (T1D). By encapsulating pancreatic cells in a semipermeable membrane to allow nutrient, insulin and glucose exchange, the side effects produced by islets and whole organ transplantation-related immunosuppressive therapy can be circumvented. Several fa...

The main goal of this study is to present preliminary results on the effects of combined transcranial direct current stimulation and wrist robot-assisted therapy in subacute stroke patients. Twelve subacute stroke patients participated in the study and were randomly assigned to the experimental (real stimulation on the affected hemisphere) or contr...

In this work we present an innovative algorithm for the dynamic control of ventricular assist devices (VADs), based on the acquisition of continuous physiological and functional parameters such as heart rate, blood oxygenation, temperature, and patient movements. Such parameters are acquired by wearable devices (MagIC & Winpack) and sensors implant...

The Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) paradigm is well established in modern surgical procedures. Although MIS is successful from the patient's viewpoint, the use of rigid instruments inserted through small skin incisions leads to dexterity constraints and loss of degree of motion. Robotics has been introduced as support for augmenting dexterity dur...

In order to follow a moving visual target, humans generate voluntary smooth pursuit eye movements. The purpose of smooth pursuit eye movements is to minimize the retinal slip, i.e. the target velocity projected onto the retina. In this paper we propose a model able to integrate the major characteristics of visually guided and predictive control of...

Humans are able to track a moving visual target by generating voluntary smooth pursuit eye movements. The purpose of smooth pursuit eye movements is to minimize the target velocity projected onto the retina (retinal slip). This is not achievable by a control based on a negative feedback due to the delays in the visual information processing. In thi...

This paper aims to demonstrate the possibility of exploiting poly-L-lactic acid (PLLA) ultra-thin films, self-assembled elastomeric structures and 3D porous polyurethane scaffolds as key enabling technologies for bio-hybrid actuation. These efforts may contribute to a paradigmatic shift towards long-term working living cell-based systems, which wou...

A cloud robotics solution was designed and initially tested with a mobile robotic platform and a smart environment, in order to provide health-care management services to senior citizens and improve their independent living. The solution was evaluated in terms of Quality of Service (QoS) and tested in the realistic scenario of the DomoCasa Living L...

The paper proposed a cloud robotic solution for the healthcare management of senior citizens, to demonstrate the opportunity to remotely provide assistive robotic services to a number of senior citizen regardless to their position in the monitored environment. In particular, a medication reminding, a remote home monitoring and an user indoor locali...

This paper reports the design and development of a novel millimeter-sized robotic system for targeted therapy. The proposed medical robot is conceived to perform therapy in relatively small diameter body canals (spine, urinary system, ovary, etc.), and to release several kinds of therapeutics, depending on the pathology to be treated. The robot is...

Capsule endoscopy is a non-invasive procedure for gastrointestinal diagnosis. It does not require sedation and it is comfortable and well tolerated by patient. However, the problem with such procedure is that a huge number of images is collected, which require time to investigate and diagnose; furthermore, the capsule movement is not controlled lea...

In the emerging field of wearable systems for remote monitoring of physiological parameters, the measurement of bioimpedance has the potential to provide many useful information. On the other hand, in this scenario, an optimization of power consumption of the circuit is crucial. A low power architecture for the measurement of bioimpedance was ident...

A robotic arm especially suited for laparoscopic surgery, having a torsional joint and a flexural joint forming serially arranged joints is described. The joints provide respective degrees of freedom for the arm, which further receives drive means for such joints. The robotic arm also has transmission means placed between the drive means have and t...

Mercury (Hg) in water partially occurs in the form of dissolved atomic vapor, the so-called Dissolved Gaseous Mercury (DGM). DGM can range from 2.5 to 25% of Total Hg (THg). DGM plays an important role in the Hg transfer through the air-water interface. The presented device measures the DGM concentration with the limit of detection 0.05 ng/L in the...