Performance evaluation of a novel master-slave rehabilitation system

Despite the benefits of the robotic technologies on rehabilitation, human involvement is still critical. On the aspect of patients, they also need the supervision of the therapist as well as their active guidance and their expertise. Through the master-slave rehabilitation system, the therapist can adjust the training according to the patient's status with their expertise. Therefore, the master-slave rehabilitation system is better than the traditional robotic rehabilitation system in which the training is programmed beforehand. In this paper, a master-slave rehabilitation system including an upper limb exoskeleton rehabilitation device (ULERD) as slave side and a human upper limb-like robot as master side is proposed. Considering that the force feedback that the therapist adjusts the training intensive or training mode (active or passive training) based on is most important during the rehabilitation. Therefore, a novel structure based on the Serial Elastic Actuator (SEA) is applied on a human upper limb-like robot for generating different resistance forces. By detecting the deflection of the elastic element, the interaction force between the human and robot can be calculated. Thanks to the high torque output actuator, the master device can mimic the spasticity of stroke patients by controlling the deflection of the elastic element. Active training can be realized for mild stroke patient with ULERD using an extended impedance control method. Therefore, therapists can perform both active training and passive training according the force feedback with proposed master-slave rehabilitation system.