Background: Gait restoration is an integral part of rehabilitation of brain lesioned patients. Modern concepts favour a task-specific repetitive approach, i.e. who wants to regain walking has to walk, while tone-inhibiting and gait preparatory manoeuvres had dominated therapy before. Following the first mobilization out of the bed, the wheelchair-bound patient should have the possibility to practise complex gait cycles as soon as possible. Steps in this direction were treadmill training with partial body weight support and most recently gait machines enabling the repetitive training of even surface gait and even of stair climbing.

This paper presents a new haptic locomotion interface, which comprises two programmable foot platforms with permanent foot machine contact. It is designed as a scalable and modular system with unit-by-unit extensibility offering up to six plus one degrees of freedom (DOF) per foot. The basic setup comprises three DOF per foot in the sagittal plane.The machine is based on a rigid hybrid parallel-serial robot kinematics structure. It is equipped with electrical direct drive motors, enabling highly dynamic footplate motions. For contact force measurement, six DOF force/torque sensors are mounted under each foot platform. The system was developed for major application in gait rehabilitation, hence great importance was attached to the incorporation of maximum passive and active security measures for machine users and medical operating personnel.The simulator is able to perform walking trajectories with speeds of up to 5 km/h and 120 steps/min. The system is able to simulate not only slow and “smooth” trajectories like walking on an even floor, up/down staircases, but also foot motions like walking on rough ground or even stumbling or sliding, which require high system dynamics.The machine is controlled by a self-developed full-featured robot control whose soft and hardware is based on up-to-date industrial standards and interfaces. The robot control software is based on RTLinux and runs on an industrial PC. The real-time motion generator includes a newly developed Fourier-based algorithm for the interpolation of natural cyclic walking trajectories. For the implementation of asynchronous events (e.g., sliding, stumbling), the controller comprises especially developed algorithms for automatic motion override adaptation. Different modes of haptic behavior needed for gait rehabilitation, ranging from full foot support during swing phase to completely passive behavior, are currently under development.Intuitive and safe machine operation by nontechnical personnel such as clinicians and physiotherapists is achieved via a separate Windows-based graphical user interface software comprising different window areas for machine programming and operation, real-time off-line simulation and online data visualization in two and three dimensions has been developed as well.A working prototype of the system has been built and tested successfully, including all soft and hardware components. Although the machine has been designed and built for major application in gait rehabilitation, its range of applicability is not limited to this area. It could be integrated into any setup requiring a highly dynamic haptic foot interface and permanent foot machine contact if needed.

This paper presents a novel robotic prototype for advanced gait rehabilitation. This system integrates sopbisticated robotic technology with control algorithms.The robot opens up new possibilities for the field of rehabilitation for restoring posture balancing and gait motoric functions. The paper provides an overview of the system's fundamental components, such as mechanical structure, patient-machine interface, sensory systems, control algorithms, etc. The results of some initial experiments also are included.Rehabilitation robot, human-robot inferaction, wire robot, impedance control, ZMP. gaitphase sensor 1. INTRODUCTTONThe development of robotic devices that can objectively examine, analyze and replicate complex human musculoskeletal movemens, as well as apply therapeutic manipulations remains a challenging research goal. The ongoing research indicates that millions of people worldwide suffer from motoric disabilities caused by neurological injwies and/or joint diseases. The conventional methods and tools for rehabilitation are both time consuming and labor intensive. Recovery of motoric functions, however, is often long and insufficient, which bas a negative impact on the patient's independence, causing absence kom work and school etc.Lately, it has been recognized [ I 4 1 that applying robotic and mechatronic technologies for rehabilitation can significantly help overcome these problems. The initial clinical trials with prototype system provide evidence that robot-aided training enhances recovery flexibility and efficiency, which significantly improves rehabilitation outcomes and reduces social and health costs. However, significant research efforts are needed to develop reliable and accessible commercial robotic systems, and to solve several problems still open which are: patient interface, the optima1 tuning and adapting the control system to specific subjects, developing safety functions and subsystems in accordance with highdemanding standards and norms, developing new therapies, etc.This paper presents a novel system for gait rehabilitation (S'I"G-MAN) recently developed at Fraunhofer IPK-Berlin, which opens new possibilities for restoring posture balancing and gait motoric functions. II. DEVELOPMENT GOALSSTRING-MAN is a powerful robotic system for supporting gait rehabilitation and restoration of motor functions by combining the advantages of partial body-weight bearing (PWB) with a number of robotic and humanoid control functions. A safe, reliable and dynamically controlled weightsuspension and posture control supports the patients in autonomously performing the gait recovery training from the early rehabilitation stage onwards. The system is designed to support gait restoration of the following patient groups (i.e. indications): neurological disorders (i.e., hemiplegia, paraplegia, cerebral palsy in children, traumatic brain injuries, etc.); orthopedic disorders (i.e., complicated hctnredislocations with open fixations, simultaneous surgery at extremities. e.g., total knee replacement and tibial os...

The paper presents a novel concept of lightweight and inherently safe robotic systems for assisting the locomotion recovery therapy and training. This concept, referred to as STRING-MAN, is established on string-puppet idea and utilizes modular wire robot components and advanced artificial muscles drives. An overview of the system's fundamental components, such as mechanical structure, patient-machine interface, sensory systems, control algorithms, etc, is given in the paper. The results of initial experiments clearly demonstrate the benefits and potential of new concept. Finally further development of STRING-MAN idea towards practical and inherently safe robotic rehabilitation assistants has also been presented. Entnommen aus TEMA

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