Design and analysis of a compatible exoskeleton rehabilitation robot system based on upper limb movement mechanism.

Journal: Medical & biological engineering & computing
Published Date:

Abstract

Rehabilitation robots are used to promote structural and functional recovery of the nervous system with repetitive, task-oriented training and have been gradually applied to clinical rehabilitation training. This paper proposes an upper limb exoskeleton rehabilitation robot system that could realize shoulder-elbow-wrist joint rehabilitation training. Firstly, a motion equivalent model was established based on the upper limb movement mechanism, the robot mechanism configuration was designed, and the optimization algorithm and spatial mechanism theory were used to optimize and analyze the structural parameters and human-machine compatibility of the robot, which will guide the design of the robot's model. Then, the robot kinematics were solved, and its maximum motion range, dexterity distribution, and daily motion trajectory were simulated. Finally, a system prototype was built to test the maximum range of robot-assisted human upper limb training by laser tracker, while the pressure of human-machine interaction during training was captured and analyzed by flexible sensors. The results show that the proposed rehabilitation robot could nearly completely cover the range of motion of upper limb joints and meet the needs of trajectory training, and the linear velocity dexterity and angular velocity dexterity in the motion space are maximum 0.55 and 0.89, and the human-machine interaction pressures during the training process are all less than 10 kPa. Besides, this paper also conducted a system evaluation based on the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model, and the evaluation result was 0.39, with an excellent evaluation grade, it indirectly indicates that the robot's overall performance was good.

Authors

  • Yuansheng Ning
    Parallel Robot and Mechatronic System Laboratory of Hebei Province, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China.
  • Hongbo Wang
    1Department of Biological Engineering, Utah State University, 4105 Old Main Hill, Logan, UT 84322-4105 USA.
  • Ying Liu
    The First School of Clinical Medicine, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China.
  • Qi Wang
    Biotherapeutics Discovery Research Center, Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201203, China.
  • Yu Rong
    Department of Radiology, Key Laboratory of Intelligent Medical Image Analysis and Precision Diagnosis in Guizhou Province, Guizhou Provincial People's Hospital, China.
  • Jianye Niu
    Parallel Robot and Mechatronic System Laboratory of Hebei Province, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China.