[Abstract] Development of a Minimal-Intervention-Based Admittance Control Strategy for Upper Extremity Rehabilitation Exoskeleton

Abstract:

The applications of robotics to the rehabilitation training of neuromuscular impairments have received increasing attention due to their promising prospects. The effectiveness of robot-assisted training directly depends on the control strategy applied in the therapy program. This paper presents an upper extremity exoskeleton for the functional recovery training of disabled patients. A minimal-intervention-based admittance control strategy is developed to induce the active participation of patients and maximize the use of recovered motor functions during training. The proposed control strategy can transit among three control modes, including human-conduct mode, robot-assist mode, and motion-restricted mode, based on the real-time position tracking errors of the end-effector. The human-robot interaction in different working areas can be modulated according to the motion intention of patient. Graphical guidance developed in Unity-3-D environment is introduced to provide visual training instructions. Furthermore, to improve training performance, the controller parameters should be adjusted in accordance with the hemiplegia degree of patients. For the patients with severe paralysis, robotic assistance should be increased to guarantee the accomplishment of training. For the patients recovering parts of motor functions, robotic assistance should be reduced to enhance the training intensity of effected limb and improve therapeutic effectiveness. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed control scheme are validated via training experiments with two healthy subjects and six stroke patients with different degrees of hemiplegia.

via Development of a Minimal-Intervention-Based Admittance Control Strategy for Upper Extremity Rehabilitation Exoskeleton – IEEE Journals & Magazine

[Abstract] Robot-Assisted Rehabilitation for Smart Assessment and Training – IEEE Xplore

Published in: Healthcare Informatics (ICHI), 2015 International Conference on

21-23 Oct. 2015

Abstract

In the last two decades, robot-aided rehabilitation has become widespread, particularly for upper limb movement rehabilitation. In this Doctoral Consortium I present a system for physical and cognitive rehabilitation that uses a combination of Serious Games to allow the monitoring and progress tracking of a person during physical therapy. The system records physical and cognitive states through the interaction with the advance robotic arm in order to assess the users hand-eye coordination, response interaction, working memory and concentration rates.

Source: IEEE Xplore Abstract (Abstract) – Robot-Assisted Rehabilitation for Smart Assessment and Training

 

[ARTICLE] A full upper limb robotic exoskeleton for reaching and grasping rehabilitation triggered by MI-BCI

Abstract

In this paper we propose a full upper limb exoskeleton for motor rehabilitation of reaching, grasping and releasing in post-stroke patients. The presented system takes into account the hand pre-shaping for object affordability and it is driven by patient’s intentional control through a self-paced asynchronous Motor Imagery based Brain Computer Interface (MI-BCI). The developed antropomorphic eight DoFs exoskeleton (two DoFs for the hand, two for the wrist and four for the arm) allows full support of the manipulation activity at the level of single upper limb joint. In this study, we show the feasibility of the proposed system through experimental rehabilitation sessions conducted with three chronic post-stroke patients. Results show the potential of the proposed system for being introduced in a rehabilitation protocol.

Source: IEEE Xplore Abstract – A full upper limb robotic exoskeleton for reaching and grasping rehabilitation triggered by MI-BCI

[ARTICLE] IEEE Xplore Abstract (Abstract) – Fuzzy sliding mode control of an upper limb exoskeleton for robot-assisted rehabilitation

Robot-assisted therapy has become an important technology used to restore and reinforce the motor functions of the patients with neuromuscular disorders.

In this paper, we proposed an upper-limb exoskeleton intended to assist the rehabilitation training of shoulder, elbow and wrist. The proposed therapeutic exoskeleton has an anthropomorphic structure able to match the upper-limb anatomy and enable natural human-robot interaction.

A modified sliding mode control (SMC) strategy consisting of a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) sliding surface and a fuzzy hitting control law is developed to guarantee robust tracking performance and reduce the chattering effect. The Lyapunov theorem is utilized to demonstrate the system stability. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of proposed algorithm, several trajectory tracking experiments were conducted based on a real-time control system.

Experimental results are presented to prove that, when compared to the conventional PID controller, the fuzzy SMC strategy can effectively reduce the tracking errors and achieve favorable control performance.

via IEEE Xplore Abstract (Abstract) – Fuzzy sliding mode control of an upper limb exoskeleton for robot-assisted rehabilitation
.