This paper presents a virtual reality-enhanced hand rehabilitation support system with a symmetric master-slave motion assistant for independent rehabilitation therapies. This system consists of a hand exoskeleton device and a lateral symmetric master-slave motion assistant system joined with a virtual reality (VR) environment. Since most disabilities caused by cerebral vascular accidents or bone fractures are hemiplegic, we adopted a symmetric master-slave motion assistant system in which the impaired hand is driven by the healthy hand on the opposite side. Furthermore, a VR environment displaying an enjoyable exercise was introduced. To verify the effectiveness of this system, a clinical trial was executed using one subject.

(далее…)

Категория: Научные статьи | Нет комментариев »

Exoskeletal devices can provide assistance and supplement to the biological musculoskeletal members. We present a wearable robotic exoskeleton conceived as an improved lower leg orthosis for compensation of human knee and ankle joints disorders provoked by muscle weaknesses during walking, introducing novel biomechanical and user acceptance aspects and daily performance monitoring functionalities.

Категория: Ищем научные статьи | Нет комментариев »

This paper details the development of a virtual simulation tool for serial manipulators in the Python language (PyMani). PyMani uses a modular design to increase the ease of learning and future development. It was used to test a design for an upper-limb assistive exoskeleton robot with seven degrees of freedom (DoF). Future work will focus on creating additional features, the code is open source and available at sourceforge

Категория: Ищем научные статьи | Нет комментариев »

The virtual torque control is a relative effective control law for the lower extremity carrying exoskeleton robot, which needs no direct measurements from the pilot or the human-machine interface, but it needs the exact mass properties and its PD controller is not applicable for the serious nonlinear system. To overcome these defaults, the virtual prototyping software ADAMS is introduced to model the exoskeleton and the model is also used to the neural network (NN) dynamic mathematics model study. At the same time, the NN is used to the dynamic feed-forward controller to compensate the human-machine interaction force. Theoretical analyse and simulation results test the feasibility and validity of this control method.

Категория: Ищем научные статьи | Нет комментариев »

We have been developing an exoskeleton robot (ExoRob) for assisting daily upper limb movements (i.e., shoulder, elbow and wrist). In this paper we have focused on the development of a 2DOF ExoRob to rehabilitate elbow joint flexion/extension and shoulder joint internal/external rotation, as a step toward the development of a complete (i.e., 3DOF) shoulder motion assisted exoskeleton robot. The proposed ExoRob is designed to be worn on the lateral side of the upper arm in order to provide naturalistic movements at the level of elbow (flexion/extension) and shoulder joint internal/external rotation. This paper also focuses on the modeling and control of the proposed ExoRob. A kinematic model of ExoRob has been developed based on modified Denavit-Hartenberg notations. In dynamic simulations of the proposed ExoRob, a novel nonlinear sliding mode control technique with exponential reaching law and computed torque control technique is employed, where trajectory tracking that corresponds to typical rehab (passive) exercises has been carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of the developed model and controller. Simulated results show that the controller is able to drive the ExoRob efficiently to track the desired trajectories, which in this case consisted in passive arm movements. Such movements are used in rehabilitation and could be performed very efficiently with the developed ExoRob and the controller. Experiments were carried out to validate the simulated results as well as to evaluate the performance of the controller.

Категория: Ищем научные статьи | Нет комментариев »