GIST's bedside rehab robot pushes back when patients can move, lifting muscle activity 73% in a small trial

A team led by Kang Ji-yeon of GIST's AI department, with Optonics and Chonnam National University Hwasun Hospital, has built Pilates-Bot, a cable-driven robot that sits beside a hospital bed and helps bedridden patients raise and spread their legs while lying down, GIST said on Oct 15 according to Robot Newspaper (irobotnews).

The heavy motors sit on wheeled frames beside the bed and pull light cables attached to a leg brace, and an Assist-Resist-as-Needed control scheme helps only when the user falls behind the target path and resists when the user can move unaided.

In a test with eight healthy adults, the report said, the controller raised muscle electrical activity by 73% and resistance force 3.5 times against assist-only control while keeping range of motion and accuracy; the work was presented at IROS 2026 in Pittsburgh (Sept 27 to Oct 1) as "Assist-Resist-as-Needed Robotic Control for Cable-Driven Bedside Training".

The prototype is finished and the team is preparing performance and safety tests for medical-device approval. Rehabilitation is one of the Korean categories MEKAWIRE tracks most closely, alongside Angel Robotics and Hurotics in wearable gait robots.