Motion Range and Control of an Escort-Type Upper Limb Rehabilitation Robot for Assisting Reaching Motion.

Abstract

To secure the amount of rehabilitation in motor function recovery training after stroke, it is important to realize a rehabilitation robot for the upper limb to guide the reaching motion of patients in the acute and convalescent phases of rehabilitation in hospitals and in the maintenance phase of rehabilitation at home without a therapist. Therefore, in this study, the escorttype rehabilitation robot, which has been proposed as a structure to guide the user's hand position and arm posture, is shown to have a motion range for the user's reaching motion including arm posture. In addition, it is shown that the escort-type rehabilitation robot can guide reaching motion for the arm posture as well as the hand position and can also guide functional reach in collaboration with the user's trunk motion, proven by simulation and experiment.