Assistive Control System for Upper Limb Rehabilitation Robot

• Published in: IEEE transactions on neural systems and rehabilitation engineering Vol. 24; no. 11; pp. 1199 - 1209
• Main Authors: Chen, Sung-Hua, Lien, Wei-Ming, Wang, Wei-Wen, Lee, Guan-De, Hsu, Li-Chun, Lee, Kai-Wen, Lin, Sheng-Yen, Lin, Chia-Hsun, Fu, Li-Chen, Lai, Jin-Shin, Luh, Jer-Junn, Chen, Wen-Shiang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.11.2016; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Arm; Arm (anatomy); Assistive control; Biofeedback, Psychology - instrumentation; Biofeedback, Psychology - methods; Clinical trials; Control systems; Equipment Design; Equipment Failure Analysis; exoskeleton; Exoskeleton Device; Humans; Kinematics; Mapping; Models, Biological; Motion Therapy, Continuous Passive - instrumentation; Motion Therapy, Continuous Passive - methods; Movement Disorders - rehabilitation; Neurological Rehabilitation - instrumentation; Neurological Rehabilitation - methods; Rehabilitation; rehabilitation robotics; Rehabilitation robots; Robot arms; Robot kinematics; Robot sensing systems; Robotics - instrumentation; Robotics - methods; Robots; Shoulder; Therapy; Therapy, Computer-Assisted - instrumentation; Therapy, Computer-Assisted - methods; Torque sensors (robotics); Trajectory; upper extremity
• ISSN: 1534-4320; 1558-0210
• DOI: 10.1109/TNSRE.2016.2532478

This paper presents an assistive control system with a special kinematic structure of an upper limb rehabilitation robot embedded with force/torque sensors. A dynamic human model integrated with sensing torque is used to simulate human interaction under three rehabilitation modes: active mode, assistive mode, and passive mode. The hereby proposed rehabilitation robot, called NTUH-ARM, provides 7 degree-of- freedom (DOF) motion and runs subject to an inherent mapping between the 7 DOFs of the robot arm and the 4 DOFs of the human arm. The Lyapunov theory is used to analyze the stability of the proposed controller design. Clinical trials have been conducted with six patients, one of which acts as a control. The results of these experiments are positive and STREAM assessment by physical therapists also reveals promising results.