Keynote talk 2: Passive and active control for rehabilitation robots

Stroke, traumatic brain injury (TBI), and spinal cord injury (SCI) are most important reasons that cause nervous system damage, and thus lead to physical disabilities. Because of long process of nervous system recovery, the patients would suffer permanent disability without effective treatment and rehabilitation. For traditional exercise therapy, most hospitals still use simple cycling devices for passive training which is very limited because of single training mode and fixed training trajectory of such machines. Since the training process for patients of neurological damage is repetitive, it is expected to improve the current status of rehabilitation by using robotics, and also it would accelerate the rehabilitation process for patients and reduce therapists' labor intensity. We will mainly address the system design of a reclining type rehabilitation robot for lower limbs, and also studied the passive training, active training and assistance training control methods for the needs of neurological rehabilitation and motor function of lower limbs for SCI or stroke patients.