A hybrid position/force teaching device and its application to rehabilitation support robots

A previous study developed a parallel wire type teaching device (PAWTED) for robots and a teaching method to accompany the PAWTED. The PAWTED was used to teach a desired motion to the robot. The present study proposes a hybrid position/force teaching method by using the PAWTED and an accompanying robot control method. A rehabilitation support robot for repeated resistance training in hemiplegia stroke patients was proposed as an application of the hybrid position/force teaching method. A teaching/training orthosis was developed with the PAWTED for repeated resistance training to demonstrate the validity of the proposed teaching method. Robot control algorithms for machine-assisted repeated resistance training were developed to verify the effectiveness of the developed orthosis, and the proposed orthosis was applied to a six-axis general purpose robot. The experiments verified that teaching/training orthosis enabled the rehabilitation support robot to reliably playback the repeated resistance training performed by the therapist. Furthermore, this verified the validity of the proposed hybrid position/force teaching method.