Research on a New Rehabilitation Robot for Balance Disorders

Abstract

The treatment of patients with balance disorders is an urgent problem to be solved by the medical community. The causes of balance disorders are diverse. An aging population, traffic accidents, stroke, genetic diseases and so on are all possible factors. It has brought great pain and inconvenience to patients and their families. At present, there are two main types of assisted rehabilitation training robots for patients with balance disorders: exoskeleton robots and end robots. The exoskeleton robot is generally installed on the outside of the patient's body to follow their movement, which can support the weight of the body and provide power support to help the patient train and recover lower limb ability. The use of end robots is usually to secure the patient's foot to the motion platform and control the pedal to drive the lower limbs to conduct gait training. Such passive training is more suitable for patients with severe disorders. The patient has low awareness of active participation. This paper focuses on research on end rehabilitation training robots for balance disorders. In this paper, a robotic system for rehabilitation training of patients with balance disorders is invented. The robot body is a 9 degree of freedom (DOF) redundant series-parallel hybrid motion platform. Two sets of motion platforms with symmetrical mirror images are used together to simulate different motion modes of the human body and drive the human body to move. Each set of motion platforms is composed of a 6-DOF vestibular parallel device and a 3-DOF proprioception parallel device. It has the advantages of DOF decoupling and fast response, proposing a new structural form for the design of proprioceptive and vestibular simulation platforms. The robot's functional level can be divided into a vestibular sense module and a proprioception module according to the structure. The two modules can work independently to achieve different functions or work together to achieve complex motion and multisensory fusion. This robot is a redundant mechanism device with 9 DOFs. Through a reasonable distribution of DOF and motion, the robot's working space can be increased, and the robot's flexibility and motion performance can be improved. In this paper, a trajectory tracking control

A Review of Parallel Robots: Rehabilitation, Assistance, and Humanoid Applications for Neck, Shoulder, Wrist, Hip, and Ankle Joints

“…This unique configuration allowed for DoF decoupling and swift responses, leading to a structure optimal for vestibular and proprioceptive simulation. with modularized vestibular and proprioceptive components, the robot's flexibility and capabilities were significantly amplified [110]. Concurrently, Shi et al enriched the sector with their 5DoF serial-parallel hybrid robot designed for gait and balance training.…”

“…Ankle rehabilitation has been a consistent area of interest every year, with advances in control algorithms [89], wearable designs [91][92][93], hybrid mechanisms [15], natural motion mimicry [102], and high-torque applications [14,[104][105][106]. As of 2023, rehabilitation techniques have expanded to treat balance disorders [110] and offer solutions for vertigo diagnosis [113].…”

“…They not only reflect the current state of art but also hint at the vast potential awaiting in the future of biomechanics and robotics. --RPUR, SPR [112] --6-UPS [96] --6-UPS/3SPR [17], 6-SSP, 3-RPS [110] --…”