dr.ir. M.I. Refai (Mohamed Irfan)

Assistant Professor at the crossroads of AI and sensing techniques applied to space biomechanics and wearable robotics. I am part of the Neuromechanical Engineering Chair.

I have extensive background in musculoskeletal modeling for real-time applications, sensor fusion for wearable biomechanics, and data-driven approaches for biomechanics. This helps me identify how we can explore novel methodologies for movement sensing in extreme environments by fusing model-based and data-driven approaches.

Engineering & Materials Science

# Extended Kalman Filters
# Units Of Measurement

Agriculture & Biology

# Gait
# Stroke

Medicine & Life Sciences

# Biomechanical Phenomena
# Gait
# Hand Strength
# Stroke

Faculty of Engineering Technology (ET), Neuromechanical Engineering (NE)

I have built my research career around different themes within assistive biomechanics. Currently, I am an Assistant Professor with Prof. Massimo Sartori within the Neuromechanical Engineering chair. My focus is towards fusing data-driven and model-based approaches for sensing and assisting movement in extreme environments (Space for example).

During my postdoctoral research, I worked with two EU Horizon projects SOPHIA (https://project-sophia.eu/) and SWAG (SWAG (swag-project.eu)). The SOPHIA project developed real-time personalized musculoskeletal models (also accounting for fatigue) to understand the impact of and provide assistance to back support exosuits. Within the SWAG project, we will extend the musculoskeletal models to capture biological joint stiffness during gait.

During my Ph.D., I worked within a Dutch NWO project AMBITION with Dr. Bert-Jan van Beijnum, Prof. Peter Veltink, and Prof. Jaap Buurke to develop a reduced wearable IMU set to measure movement quality after stroke. The study advanced the state of the art in measuring movement post stroke, and also extended the capabilities of wearable technology for this aspect.

I was formally trained as a Biomedical Engineer during my Bachelor's and as an Electrical Engineer during my Master's.

Refai, M. I. M., Sridar, S., Govaerts, R., Chini, G., Varrecchia, T., Del Ferraro, S., Falcone, T., De Bock, S., Molinaro, V., Elprama, S. A., Jacobs, A., Ranavolo, A., De Pauw, K. , van der Kooij, H. , & Sartori, M. (2023). Does a Soft Actuated Back Exosuit Influence Multimodal Physiological Measurements and User Perception During an Industry Inspired Task? In 2023 International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, ICORR 2023 (IEEE International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICORR58425.2023.10304777

Refai, M. I. , & Sartori, M. (2023). Real-time fatigue tracking using electromyography driven musculoskeletal models. Abstract from 28th Congress of the European Society of Biomechanics, ESB 2023, Maastricht, Netherlands.

Moya-Esteban, A., Sridar, S. , Mohamed Refai, M. I. , van der Kooij, H. , & Sartori, M. (2023). Adaptive Assistance With An Active And Soft Back-Support Exosuit To Unknown External Loads Via Model-Based Estimates Of Internal Lumbosacral Moments. arXiv.org. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2311.01843

Feola, E. , Refai, M. I., Costanzi, D. , Sartori, M., & Calanca, A. (2023). A Neuromechanical Model-Based Strategy to Estimate the Operator’s Payload in Industrial Lifting Tasks. IEEE transactions on neural systems and rehabilitation engineering, 31, 4644-4652. https://doi.org/10.1109/TNSRE.2023.3334993

Mahdian, Z. S., Wang, H. , Refai, M. I. , Durandau, G. V. , Sartori, M., & MacLean, R. (2023). Tapping into skeletal muscle biomechanics for design and control of lower-limb exoskeletons: A narrative review. Journal of applied biomechanics, 39(5), 318-333. https://doi.org/10.1123/jab.2023-0046

Mohamed Refai, M. I. , van Beijnum, B. J. F. , Buurke, J. H., Shull, P. B. , & Veltink, P. H. (2023). Editorial: Wearable sensing of movement quality after neurological disorders. Frontiers in Physiology, 14, Article 1156520. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2023.1156520

Niehaus, S., Ajoudani, A., Bianchi, M. , Durandau, G., Fritzsche, L., Gaertner, C. , Refai, M. I. , Sartori, M., Wang, H., & Wischniewski, S. (2022). Human-centred design of robotic systems and exoskeletons using digital human models within the research project SOPHIA. Zeitschrift für Arbeitswissenschaft, 76(4), 450–458. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41449-022-00335-5

Refai, M. I. M. , Van Beijnum, B. J. F. , Buurke, J. H. , & Veltink, P. H. (2022). Centroidal Moment Pivot for ambulatory estimation of relative feet and CoM movement post stroke: Portable Gait Lab. In 2022 International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, ICORR 2022 (IEEE International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics; Vol. 2022). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICORR55369.2022.9896526

Mohamed Refai, M. I., Wang, H. , Moya Esteban, A. , & Sartori, M. (2022). Fatigue analysis using electromyography driven musculoskeletal trunk models. Abstract from 27th Congress of the European Society of Biomechanics, ESB 2022, Porto, Portugal.

Saes, M. , Mohamed Refai, M. I. , van Beijnum, B.-J. F., Bussmann, J. B. J., Jansma, E. P. , Veltink, P. H. , Buurke, J. H., van Wegen, E. E. H., Meskers, C. G. M., Krakauer, J., & Kwakkel, G. (2022). Quantifying Quality of Reaching Movements Longitudinally Post-Stroke: A Systematic Review. Neurorehabilitation and neural repair, 36(3), 183-207. https://doi.org/10.1177/15459683211062890

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Master courses

Biomechatronics (Course 201200133): Taught lectures on electromyography processing, neuromusculoskeletal modelling, robotic control interfaces, sensor fusion (Kalman Filtering), inertial navigation, and its applications in literature. Created assignments that applied these concepts, graded students, and conducted exams on this topic.
Technology for Health (Course 201500222): Served as Capita Selecta Lecturer, and expert/instructor for the topic ‘Ambulatory sensing’ and evaluated final grant proposals.
Research Experiments in Databases and Information Retrieval (Course 201300074): Served as project supervisor. Instructed students with applying machine learning models on inertial data to classify activities such as reaching, and evaluated their final report.

Bachelor courses

Meten is Weten (To Measure is to Know; Course 202000840): Taught the Programming module. Students learnt how to use python from scratch and use it in other aspects of the course.
De Bewegende Mens en Gezondheidsrecht (The Moving Human and Health Law; Course 202000825): Instructor for the Motion Capture practical. Setup laboratory and drafted manual for equipment such as Qualisys motion tracker, Force plates, Delsys EMG systems, and Biodex dynamometer for Bachelor students. Will be involved in evaluating experimental protocols, and final course reports.
Biorobotics (Course 201800178): Coached and assisted students with programming embedded sensors using C# and MicroPython during their robot building project.

Bachelor

Biomedische Technologie

Courses in the current academic year are added at the moment they are finalised in the Osiris system. Therefore it is possible that the list is not yet complete for the whole academic year.