Global Research Award for BU Robotics Expert

9 February 2007

Bournemouth University robotics specialist Dr Venky Dubey

The Royal Academy of Engineering has recognised the expertise of BU robotics specialist Dr Venky Dubey with a special Global Research Award.

The £75,000 award will second Dr Dubey to the University of Delaware to further his research in designing and building robotic devices to improve movements in the human arm.

The scheme enables engineers to work with overseas organisations that are leading the development of new or enhanced technology.

“This is a very prestigious and competitive award,” says Dr Dubey of the University’s School of Design, Engineering and Computing.

“Generally, only 10 to 12 awards are given every year nationally and most of these go to universities like Oxford, Cambridge, UCL and Imperial.”

Dr Dubey’s areas of expertise encompass robotics, tactile sensing and intelligent control.

He is currently working on a gravity-balancing orthosis to help older people or others who are physically challenged to regain or enhance the use of their upper arms.

This can be potentially used for post-stroke rehabilitation of patients with mild impairment.

“Imagine that there is a device that is mounted on your arm and your arm becomes gravity-balanced meaning that you don’t need any, or only minimal, physical effort to move your arm and is in a state of ‘zero-gravity’ in any configuration,” Dr Dubey explains.

“Under this condition your arm can float just like it is in outer space or over the moon.

If this can be realised with a mechanical device, it can be used to support physically challenged or older people who are not able to meet activities of their daily living.

This community can be very well supported if they can regain or enhance functional capability of their hands and arms so that they can perform activities of daily living on their own.

“Obviously, such people do not lose their complete muscle power in majority of cases and their hand is still capable of performing most of the tasks,” he continues.

“This looks like a fiction but this can be achieved with suitable mechanism design which is where my work comes into play.”