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Moreover, there is a further need to account for the patient\u2019s physiological functional capacity (PFC) in the design of such assistive technology. Here, an attempt has been made to create an Assist-as-Needed (AAN) Controller that works in collaboration with a Smart Avatar. The Smart Avatar mimics the patient\u2019s capabilities by learning in real-time and informing the controller. To efficiently predict the subject\u2019s level of involvement, a Reinforcement Learning (RL) based Inverse Dynamics model has been designed. Additionally, the controller for the Avatar has been appended with an Energy Map for modifying the reference trajectories and making the system energy efficient. The human torque estimated by the Smart Avatar assists the Assist-as-Needed (AAN) controller in providing the optimum robot torque to guide the subject\u2019s wrist along the modified trajectories. The developed algorithm was validated on five healthy participants. The system achieved trajectory tracking errors in the range of 0.01\u20130.04\u2009rad across wrist motions. Subject- and axis-dependent differences in interaction torque were examined using descriptive statistics and torque profiles, supporting the feasibility of adaptive assistance under the tested conditions.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/09544119261467479","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,14]],"date-time":"2026-07-14T04:47:36Z","timestamp":1784004456000},"page":"820-835","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Robot-assisted rehabilitation: Collaborating a smart avatar with an AAN controller"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"240","author":[{"given":"Tanishka","family":"Goyal","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Information Technology and Systems, University of Canberra, Bruce, ACT, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-6580-7003","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Fahad","family":"Hussain","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Information Technology and Systems, University of Canberra, Bruce, ACT, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1330-6186","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Prashant K.","family":"Jamwal","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Information Technology and Systems, University of Canberra, Bruce, ACT, Australia"},{"name":"Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4352-0212","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Shahid","family":"Hussain","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Information Technology and Systems, University of Canberra, Bruce, ACT, Australia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,13]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_3_2_2_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hussain S Jamwal PK Van Vliet P et al. 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