Designing, Prototyping, and Controlling a Portable Rehabilitation Robot for the Shoulder Physiotherapy and Training

Every year, many individuals lose their upper-limb movement due to a stroke or an accident. Physiotherapy can help the patients to regain their mobility. Although a couple of rehabilitation exoskeleton robots are proposed to make this process easier, many of them can only be used in laboratories since they are fixed to structures. The purpose of this study is to design, prototype, and control a portable, wearable rehabilitation robot that patients can utilize in their houses readily. First, we proposed a 5-DOF mechanism which is adjustable for various body sizes and is convenient to wear. For the control loop, we used EMG sensors as feedback and a modified proportional controller that guarantees the safety of the user as the algorithm. Finally, we assessed the efficacy of the robot on a male subject who had lost his shoulder movability due to an accident. After 15 sessions of therapy in his house, his shoulder movability increased from 20 degrees to 75 degrees.