Shanghai Jinshi Robotics Advances Human-Robot Collaborative Rehabilitation with Integrated Hardware-Software Solutions

How large is the rehabilitation market? A single data point from KPMG’s 2021 report, “Rehabilitation Medical Trends Lead to a New Blue Ocean,” suffices to illustrate this.

The report shows that the compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of China's rehabilitation medical industry market size will reach 20.9% from 2020 to 2025, and by 2025, the market size will exceed 200 billion yuan.

Rising demand is driving the continuous development of rehabilitation medicine. Currently, the sector has entered a stage of steady growth, with its market size increasing year by year. However, there remains a significant gap between supply and demand in China’s rehabilitation medicine market.

On one hand, there is a relative shortage of rehabilitation medical professionals, and treatment standardization is insufficient. The Statistical Yearbook of China’s Disability Rehabilitation Cause shows that in 2019, the total number of licensed rehabilitation physicians (including assistant licensed physicians) nationwide was 27,300. Based on China’s population of 1.40005 billion in 2019, this equates to only approximately 1.9 rehabilitation physicians per 100,000 people.

On the other hand, the deployment of rehabilitation medical facilities remains inadequate. Currently, China’s assistive device industry for persons with disabilities and its public service infrastructure are still at a relatively low level. Assistive devices are predominantly mid- to low-end products, with insufficient levels of intelligence and inadequate customization for specific population groups.

The massive market demand calls for a “technological revolution” to bridge the gap.Shanghai GA BotTech Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “GA BotTech”), which focuses on the research and development of limb rehabilitation robots, was established precisely to address the pain points in rehabilitation., leveraging big data, cloud computing, and 5G communication technologies to build an intelligent rehabilitation system, thereby facilitating the continuous development of rehabilitation medicine through technological innovation.

“China’s rehabilitation medical sector currently still relies on traditional technologies, with artificial intelligence, robotics, 5G communications, and other advanced technologies rarely applied in rehabilitation. With the development of industrial technology, robotics, artificial intelligence, and big data, new fields, new products, and new solutions are bound to emerge.”“GA BotTech robotics expert Guo Shuai stated.”

Guo Shuai is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Shanghai University. With over 20 years of experience in robotics-related research, he deepened his understanding of intelligent rehabilitation robots during his tenure as a visiting scholar at Northwestern University in the United States. Upon returning to China, he has been conducting continuous research on rehabilitation robots.

As Guo Shuai pointed out, although the concept of rehabilitation has regained attention amid population aging and policy support, the industry remains in its early stages. Many smart rehabilitation assistive devices merely integrate traditional electromechanical technologies. There is a scarcity of enterprises that truly leverage and integrate emerging technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence. The industry faces numerous challenges, including product homogeneity, lack of intelligence, and mismatch with users’ actual needs.

To address these pain points, GA BotTech has leveraged technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and 5G communications to develop a range of intelligent rehabilitation products for the lower limbs, upper limbs, and single joints, as well as software solutions including cognitive training modules and cloud platforms. This integration of hardware and software forms a robust technological foundation. The iRE+ Rehabilitation Solution directly targets market pain points, meeting the diverse needs of users across various scenarios.

Taking GA BotTech’s lower-limb rehabilitation robot (iReGo) as an example, this device can perform gait training, gait assessment, balance training/assessment, sit-to-stand training/assessment, VR virtual scenario training, and gamified training.

Its proprietary full-degree-of-freedom pelvic support structure enables the pelvis to move in close coordination with the walking process, providing patients with real-time, on-demand assistive forces and body-weight support during gait training. This addresses the limitation of movement degrees of freedom caused by traditional body-weight-supported treadmill training, thereby preventing abnormal gait patterns post-rehabilitation.

Reportedly, iReGo can meet over 80% of rehabilitation training needs, while shortening the rehabilitation cycle and freeing up therapists.

GA BotTech Lower Limb Rehabilitation Robot (iReGo)

GA BotTech’s upper-limb rehabilitation robot (iReMo) enables cognitive training, mirror therapy, planar/spatial training, activities of daily living (ADL) training, and virtual reality (VR) scenario-based training. It helps patients with upper-limb motor dysfunction improve range of motion in the upper-limb joints, enhance upper-limb muscle strength, and restore lost function in the affected limb.

GA BotTech Upper Limb Rehabilitation Robot (iReMo)

iReMo features a six-degree-of-freedom robotic arm capable of performing end-effector traction-based rehabilitation training on horizontal, vertical, and inclined planes, as well as within three-dimensional space. To ensure optimal rehabilitation outcomes, iReMo utilizes intelligent sensing sensors to guide the affected limb along a target trajectory, enabling customized training spaces for rehabilitation within specified regions and planes.

Regarding the design and development logic of its product modules, Guo Shuai stated, “We aim to address the standardization challenges in rehabilitation therapy through robotics. First, GA BotTech employs intelligent robotic assessment methods to replace therapist-led evaluations, thereby making assessments data-driven, quantifiable, and standardized. Second, we integrate artificial intelligence into our rehabilitation robots and leverage cloud platform technology to consolidate and intelligently analyze treatment techniques and prescription standards from tertiary hospitals. Finally, GA BotTech seeks to equalize access to medical resources, bridging the disparities in healthcare availability among tertiary hospitals, community hospitals, and even remote areas.”

It is reported that GA BotTech has obtained two Class II medical device registration certificates and its products have been deployed at institutions including the Changzhou Ande Branch of Jiangsu Province People’s Hospital, Sichuan Bayi Rehabilitation Center, Yueyang Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Yunnan Provincial Disability Rehabilitation Center, with over 4,000 patients treated.

Overall, GA BotTech’s products boast four key advantages: a scientifically structured training protocol, an immersive experience, a cloud-based platform, and diverse training modes. According to Guo Shuai, GA BotTech has developed a cost-effective, next-generation smart lower-limb rehabilitation robot by integrating mechanism design, core control algorithms, and virtual reality human–computer interaction technologies, all built upon a low-cost, low-latency decentralized underlying control module.

The cloud platform delivers a one-stop solution encompassing training plans, intelligent assessments, and personalized training reports. Integrated training combining movement, vision, touch, and perception enables real-time interaction among medical professionals across multiple centers. Furthermore, the cloud platform not only monitors device parameters in real time to provide safe and reliable rehabilitation data for patients but also overcomes barriers of time, space, and distance. It offers real-time remote solutions to address challenges such as patients’ lack of access to specialist rehabilitation diagnosis and treatment, thereby facilitating continuous, proximity-based, smart home rehabilitation care across the “medical institution–community–home” continuum.

GA BotTech iRe+ Cloud Platform (iRe+)

It is understood that GA BotTech leverages digital twin technology to transcend temporal and spatial constraints, enabling the sharing of big data on patient gait, balance, walking rehabilitation assessments, and rehabilitation training, as well as facilitating real-time remote diagnosis and treatment based on patient medical histories for comprehensive cloud-based health management. Utilizing neural network-based intelligent optimization techniques for rehabilitation training strategies, and employing lower-limb intelligent rehabilitation robots as the platform, the company has established models for balance and gait assessment as well as fall risk prediction. Based on biofeedback data, it optimizes rehabilitation training strategies and delivers and implements personalized rehabilitation training protocols.

At the end of the conversation, Guo Shuai stated, “No patient wishes to interact with a cold, unfeeling hunk of metal. They need a rehabilitation robot that is empathetic, intelligent, warm, and capable of adapting to their changing conditions. This represents the direction of our technological development and has, to some extent, been embodied in our products.”

GA BotTech will continue to develop along this trajectory, delving deeper and achieving greater excellence. It provides trainees with safer, more effective, and enjoyable rehabilitation services, making rehabilitation training no longer tedious or difficult, enabling everyone to attain health through joy, and truly helping patients achieve the goals of rehabilitative therapy. This is the long-term, unwavering pursuit of GA BotTech.”