This paper presents ABLE, an innovative exoskeleton for the upper limb currently under development at CEA-LIST Interactive Robotics Unit. Its distinctive high performance mechanical transmissions — screw and cable patented arrangement — and its integrated architecture makes it the very first of its category. The first 4 axis model is described here but more complete models are already planned: a 7 axis model as well as portable versions. Its back-drivable, high efficiency, low inertia actuators provide a high capacity (around 40 N continuous effort at the hand) and allow hybrid force-position control without requiring any force sensor. Its first application is currently a research program in rehabilitation (BRAHMA project) and professional use is already in view. Assistance tasks for disabled persons (carrying a bottle) are also typical tasks to be performed by ABLE as well as intuitive telerobotics, haptic device for VR, and sport training, etc. Furthermore, its versatility and simple design allow industrial versions to become soon available.

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In this paper, we proposed a novel approach to control the famous PUMA manipulator with an arm exoskeleton which has been developed to enable force-feedback teleoperation and has totally different structures and dimensions from PUMA. We presented the hardware configuration and software implementation of the whole system, and then a particular issue was associated with workspace matching, which proved to be the key step for different structure based master/slave manipulator control. Finally, the conclusion was discussed, as well as the prospect of future work.

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Technology assisted therapy has the potential to transform rehabilitation options available, and to dramatically increase the reach of today’s healthcare system. Yet challenges persist in rendering translational application designs that optimize the full potential of technology and create value for the patient and the therapist. In a step towards optimizing value of technologies for practical applications to support very weak patients who might otherwise be unable to participate in traditional therapies, an integrated sensory motor training station was designed and developed. Inspired by recent neuroscientific research findings the goal of the design was to provide concurrent first person perspective immersive action observation of both virtual and real elements for motor and sensory experience; the system incorporates a virtual limb proxy that can be personalized and actuated by the robot and that is accompanied by exercise practice in peripersonal space for a plasticity promoting experience for the hand and arm. The station uses virtual reality and real objects for visual sensory experience, real objects also provide tactile sensory experience, and an exoskeleton upper limb robot provides assistance to patients. For many patients, successful movement and movement intensity required in rehabilitation is not achievable without the robot assistance. The multi-sensory features of the system promote a top-down strategy for training the upper limb (hand and arm) complementing the robot training; the system is ideally targeted for weak patients and those with tactile or proprioception sensory loss and those who are known to benefit from multi-sensory experiences.

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Many kinds of power-assist robots have been developed in order to assist daily life motions of the elderly or physically weak persons. A human upper-limb has 7 degrees of freedom to achieve various tasks dexterously. Therefore, to assist all upper-limb joint motions of a human, the upper-limb power-assist robot is required to have 7DOF. On the other hand, to achieve a desired task, a person moves own hand to the desired position and orientation. For this reason, the hand position or hand force must be focused to be controlled by the upper-limb power-assist robots. However, the hand position or hand force is 6-dimensional vector, so the 7DOF upper-limb power-assist robot has a redundancy and in general, a pseudo-inverse matrix is used in the control. In this paper, the torque optimization for an upper-limb power-assist exoskeleton robot using the pseudo-inverse matrix is discussed. The effectiveness of the proposed method was evaluated by the experiments.

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The goal of this project is to develop an upper limb exoskeletal orthosis destinated to help disabled population to achieve arm movements. This orthosis is principally designed for people suffering from myopathy and muscle degeneration. Such patients cannot generate enough force to move alone their arm. This poster presents a new approach to control the exoskeleton using pressure sensors.

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