Background The aim of the present systematic review was to screen the literature and to describe current applications of augmented reality. Materials and methods The protocol design was structured according to PRISMA-P guidelines and registered in PROSPERO. A review of the following databases was carried out: Medline, Ovid, Embase, Cochrane Library, Google Scholar and the Gray literature. Data was extracted, summarized and collected for qualitative analysis and evaluated for individual risk of bias (R.O.B.) assessment, by two independent examiners. Collected data included: year of publishing, journal with reviewing system and impact factor, study design, sample size, target of the study, hardware(s) and software(s) used or custom developed, primary outcomes, field of interest and quantification of the displacement error and timing measurements, when available. Qualitative evidence synthesis refers to SPIDER. Results From a primary research of 17,652 articles, 33 were considered in the review for qualitative synthesis. 16 among selected articles were eligible for quantitative synthesis of heterogenous data, 12 out of 13 judged the precision at least as acceptable, while 3 out of 6 described an increase in operation timing of about 1 h. 60% ( n = 20) of selected studies refers to a camera-display augmented reality system while 21% ( n = 7) refers to a head-mounted system. The software proposed in the articles were self-developed by 7 authors while the majority proposed commercially available ones. The applications proposed for augmented reality are: Oral and maxillo-facial surgery (OMS) in 21 studies, restorative dentistry in 5 studies, educational purposes in 4 studies and orthodontics in 1 study. The majority of the studies were carried on phantoms (51%) and those on patients were 11 (33%). Conclusions On the base of literature the current development is still insufficient for full validation process, however independent sources of customized software for augmented reality seems promising to help routinely procedures, complicate or specific interventions, education and learning. Oral and maxillofacial area is predominant, the results in precision are promising, while timing is still very controversial since some authors describe longer preparation time when using augmented reality up to 60 min while others describe a reduced operating time of 50/100%. Trial registration The following systematic review was registered in PROSPERO with RN: CRD42019120058.

Exoskeletons represent one of the most important examples of human-oriented robotic devices. This paper describes an existing lower-limb exoskeleton designed to assist people with lower extremity paralysis or weakness during the movements of standing up and walking. Starting from the analysis of a real system developed about seven years ago, a virtual multibody model was realized in order to deeply understand how the device worked and find out some potential improvements in the actuators control and in the kinematic design. The virtual device was properly constrained to a human musculoskeletal model in order to simulate a real operating condition. The analysis of the simulation results suggested a kinematic modification of the system and a new dynamic model was developed in order to test the new design through the comparison of four different models

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A constructive debate is ongoing among experts and academics about the social and economic impacts of advanced robotics. Exoskeleton robotic suits represent one of the most significant examples of what Human-Oriented Robotics is. After recent technological advances, the range of application fields of these devices has widened with respect to the first applications about teleoperation and power amplification. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the ongoing discussion by offering a vision of the possible future developments in terms of socio-economic impacts, resulting from the increasing use of Exoskeleton Robots, especially with regard to their applications in lower limb medical rehabilitation. In order to provide a concrete contribution to the current state-of-the-art, we are working on an alternative exoskeleton design approach to overcome the identified limits to the diffusion of this new technology. The achieved results are presented in the final part