Force Controlled Upper-Limb Powered Exoskeleton for Rehabilitation

Control interfaces to actively support the arm function of men with Duchenn Muscular Dystrophy

“…Compared to the large number of active arm prosthetic devices available for amputees [145], few active devices have been developed for supporting upperextremity function of people with severe muscular weakness [39,40,7]. This feasibility study is the first step towards the development of a control interface specially designed to control active arm supports for people with DMD.…”

“…There are few active arm supports under development intended to provide assistance during ADL for people with muscular dystrophies. These include the active version of the WREX [39], the device developed in the ESTA project [40] and the device developed in the McArm project [41].…”

“…Force-based interfaces have been implemented using force-torque sensors [104,105,106] or simple FSRs for the control of active upper-extremity orthoses [107,40,108,109] and prostheses [100]. These kind of interfaces generally implement control strategies where the output motion is related to the input force [179].…”

“…Alternative sensors include ultrasonic sensors [117] and camera-based interfaces [40,116]. An important disadvantage of camera-based interfaces is that their functionality largely depends on the light conditions that result in the need of repetitive calibrations during the day [191].…”

“…Few active arm supports are currently under development, such as the active version of the WREX [39], the device developed in the ESTA project [40] or the device developed in the McArm project [41]. This paper presents the design of the Flextension Active A-Gear, a wearable arm exoskeleton with five degrees-of-freedom (DOF), specially developed for assisting adults with DMD during the performance of ADL.…”