Performance evaluation of a novel telerehabilitation system for the elbow joint training

Abstract

Except the network latency which limits the development of telerehabilitation systems for home-based rehabilitation, the loss of real contact feeling should also be addressed. In this paper, a novel telerehabilitation system is developed to recover the lost contact feeling. The system incorporates a human upper limb-like device (master device) for therapists' use and an exoskeleton device (slave device) for patients' use. The training process of passive training with the proposed system is introduced in this paper. On the patients' side, a force sensor was used to detect the interaction force between the forearm and exoskeleton device. The interaction force can be reflected to therapists with master device which was designed with the SEA-based structure. The closed-loop interaction control method was used, thus the force feedback can be controlled by adjusting the deflection of elastic elements. The performance that the master device can generate variable impedances is evaluated. Moreover, motion tracking performance during passive trainings was tested under local network environment. The passive training is suitable for patients with severe impairments and poor motor function.