Development of robot assisted stroke rehabilitation system of human upper limb

Abstract

This project is focusing on the development of robot-assisted stroke rehabilitation system of human upper limb and hand elbow movements. Realizing the complexity of human upper limb, the study is limited to human upper limb, consisting of 3 glenohumeral joints (abduction-adduction, flexion-extension, and rotation) and elbow joint (flexionextension). In this paper the rehabilitation robotic system is proposed to assist a patient to train his hand movements to a desired position by considering other parameters such as speed and joint torque. In this system, each movement of the glenohumeral joints are scheduled based on the feedback signal obtained from the respective muscle groups through EMG signal interface. The kinematic model is proposed based on the literature survey and assumptions are made to reduce the complexity. Denavit-Hartenberg method is used for the positional analysis to determine the end position in 3D space while the Lagrange-Euler method is used for the dynamic analysis. A PID computed torque controller was designed by utilizing the equation of motion. The purpose of the controller is to compensate the dynamical imperfection and the presence of disturbance. The project is developed using MATLAB SimMechanics, in which human arm and rehabilitation robot is modeled.