Prototype Construction of the Wearable Soft Orthotic Exoskeleton for Upper Limb Rehabilitation of Post-Stroke Patients

Abstract

Exoskeleton is a wearable active device used to augment human power in upper or lower extremities. One of the most important application of these devices is to help the disable people to compensate the lack of functionality or rehabilitate. The main scope of this research is to design a prototype of a light, wearable robotic exoskeleton to rehabilitate the upper extremity in stroke patients at home. For this purpose mechanism of a wearable exoskeleton will be proposed compatible with upper extremity DOFs with minimum number of actuators which is constructed inexpensively. This idea proposes to provide an efficient, lightweight, and cost-effective device which was available for the patients at home to eliminate the demand of expensive and professional therapists. The conceptual design of such a system should be offered studying the actuation mechanism and degrees of freedom of the upper extremity for compatibility and safety issues of the proposed system. The novelty of this paper goes to the elbow actuator and minimize the number of actuators.

Remote Actuation Systems for Fully Wearable Assistive Devices: Requirements, Selection, and Optimization for Out-of-the-Lab Application of a Hand Exoskeleton

“…In cable-based RAS, a rope or a cable mechanically connects the actuation unit to the output. Most of the reviewed RAS use Bowden cables consisting of a cable guided in a sheath (Letier et al, 2006 ; Veneman et al, 2007 ; Kong et al, 2009 ; Wang et al, 2009 ; Vitiello et al, 2013 ; Agarwal et al, 2015 ; Asbeck et al, 2015 ; Bartenbach et al, 2015 ; Cempini et al, 2015 ; In et al, 2015 ; Nycz et al, 2015 , 2016 ; Cappello et al, 2016 ; Choi et al, 2016 ; Choi et al, 2019 ; Dinh et al, 2016 ; Kalantari and Ghaffari, 2016 ; Norman et al, 2016 ; Xiloyannis et al, 2016 , 2019 ; Blumenschein et al, 2017 ; Jeong and Cho, 2017 ; Popov et al, 2017 ; Yun S.-S. et al, 2017 ; Randazzo et al, 2018 ; Yi et al, 2018 ; Burns et al, 2019 ; Dwivedi et al, 2019 ; Tran et al, 2020 ). Electrical motors are most commonly used to actuate the cable transmission.…”

“…Actuation units of cable-based transmission systems are mostly composed of rotational electromagnetic motors in combination with gears (Veneman et al, 2007 ; Asbeck et al, 2015 ; Nycz et al, 2015 ; Xiloyannis et al, 2016 , 2019 ; Blumenschein et al, 2017 ; Park et al, 2019 ; Rose and O'Malley, 2019 ), pulleys (Vitiello et al, 2013 ; Choi et al, 2019 ), lead screws (Cempini et al, 2015 ), or winches (Letier et al, 2006 ; Agarwal et al, 2015 ; In et al, 2015 ; Cappello et al, 2016 ; Dinh et al, 2016 ; Kalantari and Ghaffari, 2016 ; Xiloyannis et al, 2016 ; Jeong and Cho, 2017 ; Thielbar et al, 2017 ; Tran et al, 2020 ). Alternatively, linear motors and servo motors, directly attached to the cable, have been used (Choi et al, 2016 ; Norman et al, 2016 ; Nycz et al, 2016 ; Yun S.-S. et al, 2017 ; Kim and Park, 2018 ; Lemerle et al, 2018 ; Burns et al, 2019 ).…”

“…The cables can be attached to a pulley or a gear when rotational motion is required at the output (Letier et al, 2006 ; Veneman et al, 2007 ; Vitiello et al, 2013 ; Agarwal et al, 2015 ; Cempini et al, 2015 ; Cappello et al, 2016 ; Choi et al, 2016 ; Dinh et al, 2016 ; Kalantari and Ghaffari, 2016 ; Thielbar et al, 2017 ; Yun S.-S. et al, 2017 ). Bidirectional rotational motion has often been achieved by connecting a pair of Bowden cables to a pulley (pull-pull torque transmission system).…”

Upper Limb Bionic Orthoses: General Overview and Forecasting Changes

“…Most frequently encountered upper limb hardware systems are based on electric, hydraulic and pneumatic actuation [85][86][87][88][89][90]. In the past, primitive hydraulic drives were used in exoskeletons, as it was the only type of drive that could set in motion a heavy steel frame.…”

“…Brushless motors (BLDC) have much higher torque and are more compact than brushed (Table 2), what is frequently used in elbow direct actuation [15,99], but that is not a rule and brushed motors also appear [87]. On the other hand, they require a dedicated control board to correctly change polarisation and so regulate speed/torque.…”