The team from UESTC is testing the HAL system

Standing, for most people, is a normal thing in life. However, for Zhong Xingming, a 66-year-old paraplegic soldier at Sichuan Veterans Hospital, it has been his long-cherished wish for more than 40 years. Now, with the help of the Hybrid Assitive Leg (HAL) independently developed by the Robotics Research Center of UESTC, Zhong's dream to stand up has come true.

As a soldier, Zhong Xingming became a paraplegic due to the collapse of an air-raid shelter during the Sino-Vietnamese War. From then on, he has sit in a wheelchair for 40 years. Over the past 40 years, he has dreamed of standing up many times, but the chances of standing are slim, especially if the condition is complete paraplegia of the spine and limbs.

At the beginning of 2020, by virtue of the key technology and demonstration application of the HAL under the National Key Research and Development Program“Intelligent Robot”, the Robotics Research Center of UESTC cooperated with Sichuan Veterans Hospital to set up the "Belt and Road" HAL Clinical Application Demonstration Base in this hospital. The HAL for paraplegia developed by Prof. Cheng Hong's team in UESTC was introduced, and the intelligent robot was used as a rehabilitation aid to help the disabled soldiers with paraplegia carry out walking and gait rehabilitation training.

The HAL Team of UESTC

With the help of the HAL, Zhong recovered the feeling of standing that he had dreamed about for 40 years. Although his body was not used to standing for the first time, he still felt excited from his inner heart. Zhong sighed: "I have kept sitting to watch the world for decades... Now I can stand up! That’s great! " After several months of training, Zhong can now stand and walk independently with the HAL, and gradually feel the physical and mental changes brought by this equipment, as well as good rehabilitation effects.

The veteran Zhong Xingming uses the HAL for rehabilitation training

At present, the HAL developed by the UESTC Robotics Research Center has the functions of standing up, sitting down, going up and down stairs, etc., with two versions of the safety support version and the crutch version. Paraplegic patients mostly use the safety support version in the initial training, and then use the crutch version after fully adjusting to the operation mode of the HAL. This gradually helps them to stand again.

Paraplegic athletes stood and walked by virtue of the HAL from the UESTC Robotics Research Center during the opening ceremony of the 2021 11th National Para Games in Xi 'an, Shaanxi province, Oct. 22, 2018.

With the support of the National Key Research and Development Program, the HAL developed by UESTC was awarded the registration certificate of the first batch of medical devices in China, and was awarded the honorary title of Excellent Domestic Medical Equipment in 2020. At present, the related technologies have obtained more than 80 national invention patents, and the products have been clinically tested and applied in more than 50 medical institutions such as Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital, Western Theater Command General Hospital and Union Hospital affiliated to Tongji Medical College, with a total of more than 10,000 people and 30,000 cases. In the future, UESTC will continue to support the development of the HAL to help more disabled soldiers stand up and embrace a better life again.

Source of pictures:

University of Electronic Science and Technology of China