Design and Implementation of a Gait Rehabilitation Robot Manipulator

Every year strokes, spinal cord injuries and neurodegenerative diseases cause people to begin gait rehabilitation in order to relearn how to walk after these debilitating injuries. Gait rehabilitation requires intensive physiotherapy sessions and is extremely taxing on both the patient and the physiotherapists. Robotics represents an opportunity to relieve the physical toll on the therapist while also providing a more exact motion for the patient.;This thesis describes the design of a four degrees of freedom planar manipulator for the purposes of haptic gait rehabilitation. From the kinematic and dynamic model of human gait the end effector trajectory and loading requirements were determined and applied to the structural design and optimization. The iterative optimization determined the actuation components and robot parameters. The manipulator was designed and analyzed using a finite element analysis and manufactured. The assembled manipulator was then kinematically and dynamically calibrated and tested in position control and force control modes to verify the calibrations and controllers.;The realized platform provides an opportunity for the development of novel controls in haptic gait rehabilitation as well as future objectives to develop the manipulator platform into a fully realized, commercial gait rehabilitation trainer.;From limitations in the current assortment of gait rehabilitation robots a novel platform was developed by the Advanced Biomechatronics Laboratory (ABL) at Carleton University called the Virtual Gait Rehabilitation Robot (ViGRR). Currently developed as a prototype platform for testing a novel rehabilitation configuration and rehabilitation control schemes, this thesis presents the design and implementation of the ViGRR manipulator.