PROJECT INFORMATION

Financed by

UEFISCDI – Transfer to the economic operator (PTE) – Submission code: PN-III-P2-2.1-PTE-2021-0634 http://uefiscdi.gov.ro/

PROJECT SUMMARY

TraViMo will complement the TRAVEE post-stroke neuromotor recovery platform, effectively and innovatively addressing the early stage of rehabilitation—when the patient’s affected limb is completely paralyzed (unable to perform even very small, detectable movements).

TRAVEE is a large applied research effort carried out since 2014 by the partners of this consortium:

• it has conceived, implemented, clinically piloted, and refined numerous globally innovative concepts in IT‑assisted neuromotor recovery, such as visual augmentation of movement in VR/AR, automatic adaptation of the VR workspace to the patient’s abilities, modular clinical architecture, and telemedicine architecture for advanced semi‑autonomous home recovery
• it has built (during 2022–2024) an integrated platform capable of pragmatically and effectively supporting neuromotor recovery, especially in its advanced stages.

Early stage recovery is also supported based on EEG motor imagery detection, but at a technological level with numerous performance and practical applicability limitations.

The objective of this project is to substantially improve the early stage neuromotor recovery solution, in terms of imagery evaluation accuracy, configuration time, ergonomics, attractiveness, and—extremely important—supporting the patient in performing high‑quality and sustained motor imagery.

Thus, the current project will advance components centered on motor imagery in post‑stroke patients, essential for early stage recovery:

• The EEG‑BCI motor imagery monitoring component (currently at an early TRL4 stage) will be developed in terms of capabilities, accuracy, patient configuration/adaptation time, ergonomics, flexibility, and cost, and will be validated and integrated into the TRAVEE system in a clinical context.
• Virtual environments dedicated to early stage recovery will be extended in two essential complementary directions and will be validated and integrated in the TRAVEE system in a clinical context correlated with the EEG‑BCI imagery component:
  • VR environments with advanced gamification (compared to existing ones), with gradual visual augmentation of movement, to increase patient engagement and support long‑duration training sessions
  • World premiere introduction of virtual environments specialized in relaxation and developing the post‑stroke patient’s ability to concentrate, helping the patient perform intense, clear, focused, and sustained motor imagery.

Achieving the proposed project objectives will allow the integrated TRAVEE solution to be launched on the market shortly after project completion, effectively covering both stages of neuromotor recovery, with extremely high potential to rapidly and positively impact the field of IT‑assisted neuromotor rehabilitation.

In Stage 1 of 2025, the following activities were carried out:

• A detailed study of the current state of EEG‑based motor imagery evaluation
• A detailed study of hardware equipment for EEG
• A detailed study of existing OpenVibe resources relevant to the project
• A detailed study of the current state of VR for relaxation and concentration training
• Establishing functional and non‑functional requirements for the new TraViMo system capabilities
• Establishing the data acquisition procedure for training AI models for motor imagery evaluation
• Acquisition of EEG data for training AI models for motor imagery evaluation
• Development of a new efficient and open BCI module for EEG acquisition/processing
• Preparation of AI models and infrastructure, training, validation, and refinement
• Development of an autocalibration module
• Development of gamified VR exercises for neurofeedback with visual movement augmentation
• Creation of VR environments for mental relaxation and concentration training
• Clinical piloting focused on the new BCI/AI and VR components
• Dissemination of results in journals and conferences
• Creating the project website