The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded three Baskin Engineering alumni with a $1 million Small Business Innovation Research grant to support the research and development of an extended reality platform for full-body physical rehabilitation. Aviv Elor (B.S., Robotics Engineering, ’19; Ph.D., Computational Media, ’21), Michael Powell (Ph.D., Computer Engineering, ’21), and Ash Robbins (B.S., Robotics Engineering, ’18; Ph.D., Electrical and Computer Engineering, ‘24′) co-founded Immergo Labs, which is a company that uses AI and VR to integrate telehealth capabilities and enhance remote physical therapy care.
Immergo Labs was inspired by a multi-year research effort at UC Santa Cruz in co-designing immersive virtual reality games and tools for physical and occupational therapy — reflecting Baskin Engineering’s focus on developing technology with positive social impact.
The three of them met in 2016 while working as student assistants in the Assistive Sociotechnical Solutions for Individuals with Special needs using Technology (ASSIST) Lab and Mircea Teodorescu’s Lab.
ASSIST Lab director and Professor of Computational Media Sri Kurniawan and Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Mircea Teodorescu are advising the Immergo Labs team, contributing to the strategy for research study design, accessibility, partnerships, and grant funding.
In 2020, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Marco Rolandi had informed Elor about a local Bay Area NSF Innovation Corps program, which the trio joined to gain experiential training and take their ideas beyond the university laboratory.
The team had applied for the NSF Phase I Small Business Innovation Research program with the focus on an extended reality hybrid care platform for physical rehabilitation. They won the Phase I grant in 2021 and established Immergo Labs.
During Phase I, the Immergo team discovered two major unmet needs for outpatient physical rehabilitation – which were accessible full-body movement evaluation tools and a cost-effective gold standard for biomechanical assessment. And they conducted studies which yielded promising outcomes for their extended reality platform — including accurate prediction of balance sway and improved efficiency in evaluation time compared to video conferencing and in-person methods.
With Phase II funding now secured, Immergo Labs aims to expand on the platform’s development and further demonstrate its capabilities.
And the team will also improve the companion app’s user experience and validate and set norms for biomechanical measures through a series of studies, including a large-scale study with the Houston Veterans Affairs. The NSF will also provide up to $500,000 for matching funds with eligible investments.
KEY QUOTES:
“These labs are highly unique in that Sri and Mircea promote a family-like culture where students and professors work as peers. This culture helped influence the way we run Immergo today.”
“From this program (NSF Innovation Corps), we pivoted away from stroke rehabilitation exercise games while identifying a burning need for better telehealth and hybrid care tools for physical rehabilitation.”
“This funding will enable us to greatly advance our research and development efforts by directly co-designing with clinicians and patients, extending our platform for full-body assessment, and beyond. It will also allow us to scale our operations and refine our technology based on real-world feedback.”
– Aviv Elor
