A Portable Passive Physiotherapeutic Exoskeleton

Abstract

The public healthcare system in South Africa is in need of urgent attention in no small part because there has been an escalation in the number of stroke victims which could be due to the increase in hypertension in this urbanizing society. There is a growing need for physiotherapists and occupational therapists in the country, which is further hindered by the division between urban and rural areas. A possible solution is a portable passive physiotherapeutic exoskeleton device. The exoskeleton device has been formulated to encapsulate methodologies that enable the anthropomorphic integration between a biological and mechatronic limb.A physiotherapeutic mechanism was designed to be portable and adjustable, without limiting the spherical motion and workspace of the human arm. The exoskeleton was designed to be portable in the sense that it could be transported geographically. It is a complete device allowing for motion in the shoulder, elbow, wrist and hand joints. The inverse kinematics was solved iteratively via the Damped Least Squares (DLS) method. The electronic and computer system allowed for professional personnel to either change an individual joint or a combination of joints angles via the kinematic models. A ramp PI controller was established to provide a smooth response to simulate the passive therapy motion.

A Review on Design of Upper Limb Exoskeletons

“…There are very few studies that have critically analyzed and taken into account the effect of shoulder girdle movement while designing a robotic exoskeleton that can support the 3-DOF shoulder GH joint. For example, References [6,40,41,67,75] have investigated the effect of shoulder girdle movements in designing an exoskeleton robot for the human upper limb. If the researches tried to overlook this effect, which they have done in some classified applications, it tends to limit the safer ROM.…”

Implementasi Sistem Kontrol Fuzzy pada Robot Lengan Exoskeleton

“…Lengan exoskeleton adalah struktur mekanis luar antropomorfik yang memungkinkan pengalihan tenaga mekanik dari struktur exoskeleton ke lengan manusia [9]. Perangkat seperti ini memungkinkan dilakukannya rehabilitasi fisioterapi dan lengan exoskeleton dimaksudkan untuk memberi terapi pasif kepada korban stroke agar tidak terjadi spastisitas pada persendian [10]. Uji klinis telah membuktikan bahwa terapi robot pasif menghasilkan perbaikan rehabilitasi gerakan bahu dan siku pada pasien hemiparesis spastik dibandingkan dengan fisioterapi tradisional [11].…”

Modeling and position control of a therapeutic exoskeleton targeting upper extremity rehabilitation

“…The device is attached to several points of human arm and able to control the assisting torques of each joint separately. 6,7…”

“…The device is attached to several points of human arm and able to control the assisting torques of each joint separately. 6,7 The performance of robot-assisted training directly depends on the control strategy applied in the therapy program. The controller design is a significant challenge in providing high-quality rehabilitation treatment and service, mainly because of the nonlinear properties of the human-robot interactive system.…”