Research Of A Hemiplegia Rehabilitation Robot For Upper-Limb

Rehabilitation robot, which combines industrial robotics and rehabilitation training therapy, provides a brand-new treatment for rehabilitation medicine. This paper studied the causes of stroke caused paralysis and the theoretical basis of post-stroke hemiplegia rehabilitation. The ultimate goal is to promote brain plasticity through robot-assisted rehabilitation in order to achieve a cure for paralysis.In the course of the study, after understanding the characteristics of hemiplegia after stroke, including the performance of limb paralysis, abnormal movement patterns and motor function recovery patterns, then, the paper learned the common movement treatment after stroke. On this basis, it analysed the structure and kinematics of human upper-limb. Combined with man-machine system design requirements, the robot is designed as an exoskeleton which could assist the human shoulder, elbow and wrist to exercise simultaneously. Under this scheme, the paper designed the mechanical structure of the rehabilitation training robot and developed a prototype. The robot is a non-powered exoskeletal robot which has 6 DOF, and can lead human upper-limb to do 7 DOF movements: shoulder flexion/extension, shoulder abduction/adduction, shoulder internal rotation/external rotation, elbow flexion/extension, forearm supination/pronation, wrist extension/flexion and wrist ulnar deviation/radial deviation.The robot frame and seat are designed as a whole. According to their size, sitting in the proper position, wearing the exoskeleton, the patient can start training. The system provides gravity compensation; patients with incomplete paralysis or paresis can perform active movement training on it.The paper proposed a design for the movement data collection, including all equipments and principles, and gave the kinematics equations of the robot using D-H method.