Kerflow
I worked at Inria Startup Studio on the Kerflow project alongside my colleague Diane Dewez. The goal was to leverage and transform a research project into a viable business model.
Over the past months, I have had the opportunity to combine the knowledge I gained in product development at Actronika with the research skills acquired during my PhD studies.
Activities
Transforming a research project into an industrialized product prototype
Interviewing stakeholders (patients and therapists) to understand their needs and expectations
Developing a virtual environment adapted to patients with limited mobility
Developing a wireless haptic feedback device that worked in synchrony with a simulation in VR
Role
Project owner
VR developer
User researcher
Tools
Unity
C#
Arduino IDE
FreeCAD
The problem
There is a risk of mobility loss for people who have suffered a stroke or who have been bedridden for a long period of time. Typically, the rehabilitation process begins once the patient regains a certain level of mobility. However, this requires time and patience from both patients and therapists. Moving a single limb that was previously paralyzed can sometimes be extremely painful and frustrating for patients.
Our solution
Kerflow proposes a solution to stimulate bedridden patients using multi-modal feedback. The idea is that patients can see and feel what they will be capable of doing.
Additionally, virtual environments can take patients out of their hospital context so they can see themselves embodying an avatar in nature.
About the project
Kerflow is the business branch of the Verare project. The idea is based on using immersive technologies such as VR and haptics to stimulate bedridden patients so they can begin their rehabilitation process as early as possible.
The developed solution consists of three main modules: a control interface for therapists, a virtual reality simulation running on a headset for the patient, and a haptic feedback system that provides vibrations at the level of the patient’s feet.
Haptic feedback
In this project, I developed a haptic device prototype that provided vibratory feedback in synchrony with the avatar's steps in the virtual environment. The setup was inspired by previous research works from the Hybrid research team at Inria.
The device prototype used two coin motors that vibrated according to the contact of the avatar’s feet with the ground. The idea was not to replicate actual pressure as a person could feel during walking, but to provide a sensation that could complement the auditory and visual stimuli provided in the virtual environments.
A solution to both patients and therapists
We integrated a user interface that allowed therapists to parameterize sessions and avatars for patients, but most importantly, to monitor what patients were seeing in the virtual environments.
Théo Blandin defined the ergonomy and design of the control interface.
Technical challenges
The main technical challenge was transforming a research prototype into production-ready software. We decided to begin the implementation from scratch while preserving the core functionalities of the previous research work carried out by Inria and the CHU de Rennes.
Another critical challenge was creating a system that did not require any wires between its components. We recognized that therapists are constantly moving from one place to another; therefore, the system needed to be as lightweight and portable as possible. We developed a system that allows therapists to remotely control the simulation and view the patient’s perspective in real time.
The previous research prototype was a Windows application running on a PC. To simplify system setup and improve ergonomics, we decided to develop a VR headset application that communicates with an Android application running on a tablet. This required working with graphics optimized for the limitations of current VR headsets.
