A Novel Design and Implementation of a 4-DOF Upper Limb Exoskeleton for Stroke Rehabilitation with Active Assistive Control Strategy

We developed a robot, CUREs (Chulalongkorn University Rehabilitation Robotic Exoskeleton system), for upper extremity rehabilitation. The active assistive control strategy based on the impedance force control is developed and implemented to obtain assistive-resistive paths tracking for rehabilitation activities. The desired trajectory or rehabilitated training pattern for each specific patient need to be assigned first by a medical doctor and a physical therapy. The therapist can program the desired trajectory by guiding the patient arm based on the assigned path pattern and the set of via points will be stored and used for generating the desired trajectory. The desired trajectory will be stored specific for the patient and can be called back anytime. During the rehabilitation, the robot can assist and resist the patient’s arm to follow the desired trajectory. If the patient has difficulty moving his arm to track the desired path, the robot will help by adding more torque to help the patient to move his arm to reduce the error between the desired path and the actual posture. And if the patient himself can move his arm tracking the desired path, the robot will not apply any more force to assist or resist. The necessary state variables such as angular position and torque can be recorded during the training. The main purpose of the experiment, follow the medical ethic, is to assure that there is no side effect for using this rehabilitation robot. Five subacute stroke patients participated in this pilot study. All patients have severe upper extremity weakness. The medical doctor will assign the training pattern based on patient condition. The result showed that the Fugl-Meyer Assessment Upper Extremity Scale was improved after 10 days of training in all participants without any sign of side effect.We developed a robot, CUREs (Chulalongkorn University Rehabilitation Robotic Exoskeleton system), for upper extremity rehabilitation. The active assistive control strategy based on the impedance force control is developed and implemented to obtain assistive-resistive paths tracking for rehabilitation activities. The desired trajectory or rehabilitated training pattern for each specific patient need to be assigned first by a medical doctor and a physical therapy. The therapist can program the desired trajectory by guiding the patient arm based on the assigned path pattern and the set of via points will be stored and used for generating the desired trajectory. The desired trajectory will be stored specific for the patient and can be called back anytime. During the rehabilitation, the robot can assist and resist the patient’s arm to follow the desired trajectory. If the patient has difficulty moving his arm to track the desired path, the robot will help by adding more torque to help the patient to move his arm to reduce the error between the desired path and the actual posture. And if the patient himself can move his arm tracking the desired path, the robot will not apply any more force to assist or resist. The necessary state variables such as angular position and torque can be recorded during the training. The main purpose of the experiment, follow the medical ethic, is to assure that there is no side effect for using this rehabilitation robot. Five subacute stroke patients participated in this pilot study. All patients have severe upper extremity weakness. The medical doctor will assign the training pattern based on patient condition. The result showed that the Fugl-Meyer Assessment Upper Extremity Scale was improved after 10 days of training in all participants without any sign of side effect

Utilizing the intelligence edge framework for robotic upper limb rehabilitation in home

Robotic devices are gaining popularity for the physical rehabilitation of stroke survivors. Transition of these robotic systems from research labs to the clinical setting has been successful, however, providing robot-assisted rehabilitation in home settings remains to be achieved. In addition to ensure safety to the users, other important issues that need to be addressed are the real time monitoring of the installed instruments, remote supervision by a therapist, optimal data transmission and processing. The goal of this paper is to advance the current state of robot-assisted in-home rehabilitation. A state-of-the-art approach to implement a novel paradigm for home-based training of stroke survivors in the context of an upper limb rehabilitation robot system is presented in this paper. First, a cost effective and easy-to-wear upper limb robotic orthosis for home settings is introduced. Then, a framework of the internet of robotics things (IoRT) is discussed together with its implementation. Experimental results are included from a proof-of-concept study demonstrating that the means of absolute errors in predicting wrist, elbow and shoulder angles are 0.89180,2.67530 and 8.02580, respectively. These experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of a safe home-based training paradigm for stroke survivors. The proposed framework will help overcome the technological barriers, being relevant for IT experts in health-related domains and pave the way to setting up a telerehabilitation system increasing implementation of home-based robotic rehabilitation. The proposed novel framework includes: • A low-cost and easy to wear upper limb robotic orthosis which is suitable for use at home. • A paradigm of IoRT which is used in conjunction with the robotic orthosis for home-based rehabilitation. • A machine learning-based protocol which combines and analyse the data from robot sensors for efficient and quick decision making

Design, Fabrication, and Control of an Upper Arm Exoskeleton Assistive Robot

Stroke is the primary cause of permanent impairment and neurological damage in the United States and Europe. Annually, about fifteen million individuals worldwide suffer from stroke, which kills about one third of them. For many years, it was believed that major recovery can be achieved only in the first six months after a stroke. More recent research has demonstrated that even many years after a stroke, significant improvement is not out of reach. However, economic pressures, the aging population, and lack of specialists and available human resources can interrupt therapy, which impedes full recovery of patients after being discharged from hospital following initial rehabilitation. Robotic devices, and in particular portable robots that provide rehabilitation therapy at home and in clinics, are a novel way not only to optimize the cost of therapy but also to let more patients benefit from rehabilitation for a longer time. Robots used for such purposes should be smaller, lighter and more affordable than the robots currently used in clinics and hospitals. The common human-machine interaction design criteria such as work envelopes, safety, comfort, adaptability, space limitations, and weight-to-force ratio must still be taken into consideration.;In this work a light, wearable, affordable assistive robot was designed and a controller to assist with an activity of daily life (ADL) was developed. The mechanical design targeted the most vulnerable group of the society to stroke, based on the average size and age of the patients, with adjustability to accommodate a variety of individuals. The novel mechanical design avoids motion singularities and provides a large workspace for various ADLs. Unlike similar exoskeleton robots, the actuators are placed on the patient\u27s torso and the force is transmitted through a Bowden cable mechanism. Since the actuators\u27 mass does not affect the motion of the upper extremities, the robot can be more agile and more powerful. A compact novel actuation method with high power-to-weight ratio called the twisted string actuation method was used. Part of the research involved selection and testing of several string compositions and configurations to compare their suitability and to characterize their performance. Feedback sensor count and type have been carefully considered to keep the cost of the system as low as possible. A master-slave controller was designed and its performance in tracking the targeted ADL trajectory was evaluated for one degree of freedom (DOF). An outline for proposed future research will be presented

Robotics 2010

Without a doubt, robotics has made an incredible progress over the last decades. The vision of developing, designing and creating technical systems that help humans to achieve hard and complex tasks, has intelligently led to an incredible variety of solutions. There are barely technical fields that could exhibit more interdisciplinary interconnections like robotics. This fact is generated by highly complex challenges imposed by robotic systems, especially the requirement on intelligent and autonomous operation. This book tries to give an insight into the evolutionary process that takes place in robotics. It provides articles covering a wide range of this exciting area. The progress of technical challenges and concepts may illuminate the relationship between developments that seem to be completely different at first sight. The robotics remains an exciting scientific and engineering field. The community looks optimistically ahead and also looks forward for the future challenges and new development

Development and Control of a 3-DoF Exoskeleton Robot for Forearm and Wrist Rehabilitation

The research conducted under this project directly contributes to the development of a forearm and wrist rehabilitation robot (UWM-FWRR). Upper extremity impairment following stroke, trauma, sports injuries, occupational injuries, spinal cord injuries, and orthopaedic injuries results in significant deficits in hand manipulation and the performance of everyday tasks. Strokes affect nearly 800,000 people in the United States each year. Rehabilitation programs are the main method of promoting functional recovery in individuals with finger impairment. The conventional therapeutic approach requiring a long commitment by both the clinician and the patient. Robotic devices (RDs) are novel and rapidly expanding technologies in hand rehabilitation. However, existing RDs have not been able to fully restore hand functionality as they cannot provide the independent joint control and levels of velocity and torque required. Our customer discovery [1] reveals that therapists often prescribe therapeutic devices for passive arm/leg movement assistance but no therapeutic devices exist for combined hand, wrist, and forearm movements that can be used at home/clinic. Regaining hand strength and mobility plays an important role in supporting essential activities of daily living, such as eating, and thus has the potential to improve the physical and mental status of both stroke patients and their family caregivers. Therefore, through this research author has develop UWM-FWRR that can provide rehabilitative exercises for forearm and, wrist movements. In contrast to existing RDs, developed UWM-FWRR is a portable, light weight, low cost, and novel powered rehabilitation device that will be developed to provide therapeutic exercises to a wide group of patients with different degrees of impairments. This innovation provides an opportunity for the patients to perform exercises not only with the guidance of a therapist at clinic but also be used at home as a telerehabilitation device through smartphone application (Future works)

Rehabilitation Engineering

Population ageing has major consequences and implications in all areas of our daily life as well as other important aspects, such as economic growth, savings, investment and consumption, labour markets, pensions, property and care from one generation to another. Additionally, health and related care, family composition and life-style, housing and migration are also affected. Given the rapid increase in the aging of the population and the further increase that is expected in the coming years, an important problem that has to be faced is the corresponding increase in chronic illness, disabilities, and loss of functional independence endemic to the elderly (WHO 2008). For this reason, novel methods of rehabilitation and care management are urgently needed. This book covers many rehabilitation support systems and robots developed for upper limbs, lower limbs as well as visually impaired condition. Other than upper limbs, the lower limb research works are also discussed like motorized foot rest for electric powered wheelchair and standing assistance device