Assistive Expertise Improvement has developed the Reflex wearable robotic for rehabilitation. Supply: ATDev
The time is true to use robotics and synthetic intelligence to mobility and manipulation challenges, based on the founders of Assistive Expertise Improvement Inc., or ATDev. The corporate is engaged on the subsequent technology of techniques to assist individuals with rehabilitation and every day life.
ATDev co-founders Owen Kent and Todd Roberts met as roommates on the College of California, Berkeley.
“I got here to search out out I used to be really mentoring an engineering course designing for the human physique that Todd was taking as a part of his grasp’s program in exoskeleton design and mechanical engineering. In order that was fairly serendipitous. After which I got here to search out out that we actually shared plenty of related passions for constructing assistive expertise,” recalled Kent. “I’ve been a wheelchair consumer my entire life. I’ve a kind of muscular dystrophy, and it’s a necessity reasonably than invention.”
Their thought of utilizing robotics for bodily remedy started as a category venture and was a firm with analysis funding from the Nationwide Science Basis and the Nationwide Institutes of Well being.
“We bought our first enterprise capital examine in 2022 from UC Berkeley’s Skydeck program. It’s form of a modified model of the Y Combinator program that Berkeley runs,” stated Roberts. “They lower us a $200,000 examine that allow us get a bit bit extra money into growing some prototypes immediately consistent with what we wished to construct with Reflex.”
“After which in 2023, we closed our pre-seed spherical with some funding from a small hardware-focused VC agency based mostly out of Orange County referred to as Options,” he added. “We have been of their lab house for the final virtually three years and raised a seed spherical again in 2025 that aligned with our U.S. launch of the Reflex product.”
Reflex offers constant rehab assist
Reflex is a robotic machine that straps on to a consumer’s leg for orthopedic knee rehabilitation. Weighing lower than 5 lb. (2.2 kg), it contains sensors for distant monitoring and guided workouts. This enables for extra sustained use than classes with a human therapist, stated ATDev.
“This isn’t a software to interchange bodily therapists; this can be a software to make them 10x more practical,” stated Kent.
ATDev has already confirmed {that a} bodily remedy machine can acquire insurance coverage reimbursements, and it plans to indicate that its techniques can present assist over longer timeframes.
The Orange, Calif.-based firm works with NVIDIA, Amazon Internet Companies, Kinova Robotics, and LUCI Mobility. It additionally has partnerships with the College of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon College, Cornell College, Northeastern College, and Purdue College.
RAAMP program offers ATDev funding
In November, ATDev introduced that it was a subcontractor within the Robotic Assistive Mobility and Manipulation Platform (RAMMP) program. The Superior Analysis Initiatives Company for Well being (ARPA-H) had awarded as much as $41 million to the College of Pittsburgh for this system.
RAMMP goals to create a brand new technology of open-source robotic applied sciences to offer mobility and manipulation help to individuals with disabilities to allow them to stay extra independently.
ARPA-H was modeled after the Protection Superior Analysis Initiatives Company (DARPA) as a part of the Biden administration’s “most cancers moonshot,” famous Roberts. ATDev submitted its proposal to handle the tough issues of completely autonomous navigation and protected feeding for individuals with quadriplegia in April 2024.
Getting federal funding could be a problem with the change of administrations, Roberts acknowledged, however in early 2025, “the brand new administration picked up the baton and stated, hey, we actually like this. We wanna assist our veteran neighborhood primarily by way of this expertise, however [also] the growing old inhabitants extra broadly.”
“There was a bunch of negotiations over the summer time, as a result of it’s not a standard grant the place you write the proposal, and so they say sure or no, and then you definitely go do it. It’s a contract for the federal government,” he stated. “So that you’re negotiating milestones, you’re negotiating complete quantity of funding, you’re negotiating mental property rights. After which lastly, that each one bought over the end line on the final attainable day of the 2025 fiscal yr. So Sept. 25, it was signed by the federal government, and we have been greenlit earlier than the shutdown. We kicked the venture off in October and are off and rolling.”
The RAMMP group on the press convention asserting its ARPA-H award. Supply: ATDev
Robotic wheelchair developer offers customers a seat on the desk
Most powered wheelchair customers are caught with decades-old expertise, akin to lead-acid batteries and motors with out encoders to know whether or not or not they’re transferring, famous Kent.
“As a lifelong wheelchair consumer, it’s been so irritating for me to see a $50 robotics package on Amazon that has higher expertise than my $40,000 wheelchair,” he stated. “We’ve performed in all probability over 200 buyer interviews of those who use wheelchairs and have plenty of spreadsheets about issues they like, issues they don’t like, and so we actually really feel like we’ve performed plenty of the legwork across the consumer wants and design necessities.”
“Our imaginative and prescient for this firm is to essentially have the tip customers have an energetic seat on the desk,” stated Kent. “I’m clearly the co-founder of the corporate, however we actually plan to construct out in depth advisory boards of finish customers which might be capable of actively assist design and form the expertise.”
ATDev additionally plans to finally make use of finish customers with disabilities as distant assist technicians to allow them to carry their very own experiences to understanding how the expertise works, he stated.
ATDev works to carry its techniques to market
With one ATDev division specializing in getting Reflex to market, a separate group is engaged on technical milestones for its robotic wheelchair.
“One among our subsequent most rapid milestones is an preliminary demonstration of a ‘easy’ activity to be accomplished with a better degree of autonomy than we are able to do immediately,” stated Roberts. “We’ll have a consumer doing regular actions of every day dwelling, combining laptop imaginative and prescient, a robotic arm, and a wheeled platform.”
The corporate plans to conduct this demonstration this coming summer time, he stated.
“Our broader imaginative and prescient at ATDev is to create an ecosystem of gadgets that allow individuals to remain impartial, irrespective of their degree of bodily perform,” Roberts stated. “That’s going to incorporate all kinds of robotic techniques, every thing from a light-weight, single-jointed exoskeleton like Reflex to robotic wheelchairs.”
ATDev is exhibiting at CES this week within the Venetian Expo Heart, Sales space 61261 in Corridor G.
