The University of Delaware is leading a new five-year, $21.5 million federal initiative that will put artificial intelligence to work inside its own physical therapy clinics, aiming to help stroke survivors, people with Parkinson's disease and lower-limb amputees recover mobility faster and more precisely. The effort, known as the AI Institute for Human-AI Cooperation, is headquartered at UD's Data Science Institute in Newark and brings together four other universities under a single National Science Foundation award.
A Five-Year Federal Bet on Human-Centered AI
The National Science Foundation issued the $21.5 million, five-year award to establish the institute, according to UDaily, the university's own news outlet. The institute is led by Cathy Wu, UD's Unidel Edward G. Jefferson Chair in Engineering and Computer Science, and will engage 11 University of Delaware faculty members and their research teams, per the same report. The goal, UDaily notes, is artificial intelligence designed to support, not replace, human decision-making in health care.
That framing matters because the institute's early projects are aimed squarely at some of rehabilitation medicine's toughest cases. Per UDaily, early work will emphasize neurologic rehabilitation, particularly stroke, Parkinson's disease and other age-related motor impairments, alongside musculoskeletal conditions and lower-limb amputations. 6abc Philadelphia, which first reported on the institute's launch, described the underlying technology as intended to support rather than replace healthcare providers, performing backend analysis so physical therapists can deliver more efficient, personalized treatment.
Digital Twins and a Working Clinic as Testing Ground
Researchers plan to use multimodal data and AI-enabled digital twins, essentially virtual versions of patients, to generate patient-specific predictions and test treatment options before applying them in real life, UDaily reports. The work will unfold inside UD's Physical Therapy Clinic, which the university says records more than 30,000 patient visits each year, giving the institute a built-in pipeline of real-world cases to study. 6abc Philadelphia reported that the facility includes research spaces for developing and testing new technologies, prototyping labs, and treadmills designed to engage people walking in new ways, and that the university's center marks the 30th AI institute established under the NSF's national program.
The pairing of a live clinic with a research lab is not without precedent at UD. The university's Sensorimotor Control and Robotic Rehabilitation Lab already uses a KINARM robotic exoskeleton to track limb movement and provide assisted motion by controlling the elbow and shoulder, according to the lab's own site. A decade earlier, a UD team won a three-year National Robotics Initiative grant from the NSF to develop GOALL, a gait-training approach that combines biomechanical modeling with lower-extremity exoskeleton experiments to adjust step length and walking speed for stroke survivors, UDaily reported in 2016.
Five Universities, One Shared Mission
The institute's reach extends well beyond Newark. UDaily reports that the collaboration includes Delaware State University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Florida and Princeton University. At Delaware State, participation will be led through the university's College of Agriculture, Science and Technology, known as CAST, according to WDEL. Hacene Boukari will serve as a co-principal investigator for the institute and as Delaware State's site lead, the station reported.
Delaware State hopes the partnership will strengthen its existing AI and data science work while creating new research and training opportunities for students, per WDEL's reporting. Students in the program will work with clinicians and rehabilitation specialists to learn about real-world challenges while also collaborating with faculty conducting AI research, the station noted. The broader goal, as 6abc Philadelphia framed it, is helping people remain mobile and return to work, sports and everyday activities.
Part of a Broader Delaware AI Push
The institute doesn't exist in isolation. UD has been positioning the state as what one university engineering publication called a living lab, where academia, health systems and government collaborate on AI-enabled health care, according to a report from UD's College of Engineering. That same reporting noted that UD researchers have already developed a prototype autonomous wheelchair that uses onboard sensors, computing and software to interpret spoken directions, and that other campus teams are building computer models to predict blood glucose trends and guide insulin delivery for people with type 1 diabetes.
The new institute's focus on movement and medical records to tailor treatment fits into a wider research trend. A systematic mapping review covering thousands of records identified 240 studies applying AI for rehabilitative purposes, with most focused on neurological and orthopedic rehabilitation, according to a low-confidence search snippet cited in research published on PubMed. For Newark, the five-year clock now starts on turning that kind of research into tools clinicians can actually use at the bedside.
