Title :
An underactuated wearable arm-swing rehabilitator for gait training
Author :
Barnes, Owen R. ; Hejrati, Babak ; Abbott, Jake J.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Mech. Eng., Univ. of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
Abstract :
This paper presents the design concept and fabricated prototype of a device that swings the arms for use in gait rehabilitation. The device is designed to be used in conjunction with a body-weight-support treadmill. The device is backdrivable, wearable, capable of assisting the user´s arm swing in the sagittal plane, and has unhindered kinematics in the remaining unactuated degrees of freedom. Tests are performed to validate the shoulder-angle prediction equations based on the non-collocated motor-angle sensor measurements, to validate the device´s ability to provide adequate torque to induce arm-swing in a passive user, and to investigate whether or not the user´s active involvement can be determined by examining sensor data. The results show that the device does provide sufficient torque to move the arms with a factor of safety, but that the model-based shoulder-angle estimates obtained from the motor measurements have non-negligible error with the current prototype. It is shown that the controlled device generates low RMS tracking error and is able to diagnose user-assistance level (i.e., if the user is passive or actively assisting arm swing) online by observing shoulder-angle amplitudes and peak motor torques.
Keywords :
control system synthesis; gait analysis; medical robotics; patient rehabilitation; safety; torque control; RMS tracking error; body-weight-support treadmill; design concept; fabricated prototype; gait rehabilitation; gait training; noncollocated motor-angle sensor measurements; peak motor torques; safety; shoulder-angle amplitudes; underactuated wearable arm-swing rehabilitator; user-assistance level; DC motors; Joints; Legged locomotion; Muscles; Pulleys; Shoulder; Torque;
Conference_Titel :
Robotics and Automation (ICRA), 2015 IEEE International Conference on
Conference_Location :
Seattle, WA
DOI :
10.1109/ICRA.2015.7139894