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A new and light wheelchair-mounted robotic arm (WMRA-II) was designed and built to meet the needs of mobility-impaired persons with limitations of upper extremities, and to exceed the capabilities of current devices of this type. The structure of the new robotic arm utilizes carbon-fiber and polycarbonate tubes to reduce the arm weight. The mechanical design incorporates DC servo drive, with actuator...
This paper reports on the powered elbow orthosis for orthopaedic rehabilitation project and its main challenges. The mechanical design is briefly discussed. The actuator being used is the novel rotational actuator, MACCEPA or Mechanically Adjustable Compliance and Controllable Equilibrium Position Actuator. The schematic representation and working principle of this actuator are recapitulated in short...
Patients with moderate to severe hemiparesis following stroke often show abnormal muscle coactivation and a loss of interjoint coordination in the hemiparetic limb. These abnormal stereotypic movement patterns are known in clinical rehabilitation as abnormal secondary torques or synergies. In the beginning of a rehabilitation process the patients often train inside those synergistic patterns, what...
In this paper, we present the dynamics, control, and preliminary experiments on a wearable upper arm exoskeleton intended for human users with four degrees-of-freedom (dof), driven by six cables. The control of this cable-driven exoskeleton is complicated because the cables can transmit forces to the arm only under tension. The standard PD controllers or computed torque controllers perform only moderately...
This paper describes a multi-joint robot finger with soft compliant mechanism for safe and comfortable nursing-care services. In proposed mechanism, we utilize 2 different types of elastic elements at fingertip and MP joint (Metacarpa-Phalangeal Joint), respectively, so as to realize soft and stable contact with human body. At fingertip, a hemisphere shaped silicone gum cushion is mounted, while eight...
Exoskeletons are attracting a great attention as a new means of rehabilitation devices. In such applications, control algorithms of exoskeletons are often inspired by nature for natural and effective assistance for patients. In this paper, a control algorithm is inspired by aquatic therapy. Aquatic therapy has various benefits for rehabilitation processes based on useful properties of water, e.g....
In this paper the trajectory tracking control of the arm rehabilitation robot for stroke patients is investigated by an interactive robust control approach. The functions of patients' voluntary joint torques are designed depending on the motion ability of their arms, and the dynamic model of the human-robot system is presented. Based on the dynamic model, an interactive controller is designed to provide...
In this paper, we present the design of a new fMRI compatible haptic interface with 3DOFs, based on electrical DC actuation, for the study of brain mechanisms of human motor control. In order to evaluate the validity of the proposed solution, we performed some preliminary experiments with a single degree of freedom device to test the compatibility with the fMRI environment. The 1DOF design was extended...
Based on the analysis of the first prototype of an assisting robotic arm (ARA) for minimally invasive thoracic surgery, an improved design is presented. A self-gravity compensation mechanism is developed to resist joint torques caused by the weight of the robot and to reduce the force exerted on the end-effector by the surgeon. With a motor built into the arm, the design of the ball-socket-joint is...
This paper investigates several robotic mechanisms for ankle function evaluation, measurement and physiotherapy. For the choice, design and operation of the mechanism the kinematics of the foot is described. This is based on a kinematics model of foot adopted from biomechanics literature, under the hypothesis that foot kinematics is similar to that of a 2R serial robot. A 3D scanner and an inertial...
This paper presents a novel 7 (active) +2 (passive) degrees of freedom (DOF) exoskeleton to achieve effective rehabilitation of upper limbs with neurological impairment. The 7+2 DOF robot was designed for allowing anatomically correct motions in the upper extremity, and for measuring 18 axis forces/torques and 9 DOF positions. A novel four-step integrated rehabilitation approach was developed and...
Rehabilitation robotics is a young discipline that will become an imperative when the age of the population rises. The orthopaedic rehabilitation of the elbow joint poses some interesting challenges, discussed in this paper. There is a major difference between neuro-rehabilitation and orthopaedic rehabilitation and thus in the approaches necessary to tackle its challenges. Moreover, the elbow joint...
Robotic gait rehabilitation faces many challenges regarding ankle assistance, body weight support and physical human-robot interaction. This paper reports on the development of a gait rehabilitation exoskeleton prototype intended as a platform for the evaluation of design and control concepts in view of improved physical human-robot interaction. The performance of proxy-based sliding mode control...
This paper presents ABLE, an innovative exoskeleton for the upper limb currently under development at CEA-LIST Interactive Robotics Unit. Its distinctive high performance mechanical transmissions - screw and cable patented arrangement - and its integrated architecture makes it the very first of its category. The first 4 axis model is described here but more complete models are already planned: a 7...
The rehabilitation robot Lokomat allows automated treadmill training for patients with neurological gait disorders. The basic position control approach for the robot has been extended to patient-cooperative strategies. These strategies provide more freedom and allow patients to actively influence their training. However, patients are likely to need additional support during patient-cooperative training...
Walknet, a biological inspired neural network, has been proposed to control walking of a 6-legged; 18 DoF walker. Control of stance movement is difficult because all legs in stance are mechanically coupled. Based on the idea of velocity feedback, recently a specific revision, local positive velocity feedback, has been proposed to solve this problem using an extremely decentralised architecture. In...
In this paper we introduce a friction observer for robots with joint torque sensing (in particular for the DLR medical robot) in order to increase the positioning accuracy and the performance of torque control. The observer output corresponds to the low-pass filtered friction torque. It is used for friction compensation in conjunction with a MIMO controller designed for flexible joint arms. A passivity...
This paper reports on the current status of the effort conducted at ULB in order to develop a portable muscular rehabilitation device for telemedicine applications. It is divided into four parts. The first part recalls the basic modes of muscular rehabilitation and gives a brief overview of commercial rehabilitation machines as well as portable devices under development. The second part describes...
In recent years, several surgical or assistant robots have made a successful debut to surgical theatre. Due to their large size, and high price, there is a growing need for the miniaturization of these surgical robots. In this paper, a design methodology for a compact surgical robot is presented. Considering workspace and force requirements, a simulation and experiments are conducted to determine...
SUBAR (Sogang Universitypsilas biomedical assistive robot), an advanced version of the EXPOS, is a wearable robot developed for assisting physically impaired people. It provides a human with assistive forces controlled by the human intention. Since it applies geared DC motors, however, the control efforts are used mainly to overcome the resistive forces caused by the friction, the damping and the...
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