Abstract
Robot-assisted therapy affords effective advantages to the rehabilitation training of patients with motion impairment problems. To meet the challenge of integrating the active participation of a patient in robotic training, this study presents an admittance-based patient-active control scheme for real-time intention-driven control of a powered upper limb exoskeleton. A comprehensive overview is proposed to introduce the major mechanical structure and the real-time control system of the developed therapeutic robot, which provides seven actuated degrees of freedom and achieves the natural ranges of human arm movement. Moreover, the dynamic characteristics of the human-exoskeleton system are studied via a Lagrangian method. The patient-active control strategy consisting of an admittance module and a virtual environment module is developed to regulate the robot configurations and interaction forces during rehabilitation training. An audiovisual game-like interface is integrated into the therapeutic system to encourage the voluntary efforts of the patient and recover the neural plasticity of the brain. Further experimental investigation, involving a position tracking experiment, a free arm training experiment, and a virtual airplane-game operation experiment, is conducted with three healthy subjects and eight hemiplegic patients with different motor abilities. Experimental results validate the feasibility of the proposed scheme in providing patient-active rehabilitation training.
Highlights
Stroke is a severe neurological disease caused by the blockages or rupture of cerebral blood vessels, leading to significant physical disability and cognitive impairment [1, 2]
Taking the above issues into consideration, the main contribution of this paper is to develop a control strategy for an upper limb exoskeleton to assist disabled patients in performing active rehabilitation training in a virtual scenario based on their own active motion intentions
The upper limb rehabilitation exoskeleton system was designed by Qingcong Wu and Xingsong Wang
Summary
Stroke is a severe neurological disease caused by the blockages or rupture of cerebral blood vessels, leading to significant physical disability and cognitive impairment [1, 2]. The recent statistics from the World Health Organization indicate that worldwide 15 million people annually suffer from the effect of stroke, and more than 5 million stroke patients survive and, require a prolonged physical therapy to recover motor function. Four-fifths of all survived stroke patients suffer from the problems of hemiparesis or hemiplegia and, as a result, have difficulties in performing activities of daily living (ADL). Medical research has proved that, owing to the neural plasticity of the human brain, appropriate rehabilitation trainings are beneficial for stroke survivors to recover musculoskeletal motor abilities.
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