A Kinect-Based Trajectory Capturing and Tracking Scheme for Upper-Limb Robot-Aided Rehabilitation

This paper proposed a trajectory capturing and tracking scheme for the upper limb robot-aided rehabilitation. The kinematic model of human upper limb was established. Based on Kinect sensor, the position of each joint of the healthy side of the hemiplegia patient can be collected and calculated to the joint angles according to the inverse kinematics principle. These time-varying angles correspond to the specific movement of the activity of daily living and can be taken as a movement task input by the position controller of the robot. So that the affected upper limb of the patient can move like in the mirror according to the healthy one with the help of the robotic exoskeleton. Impedance and fuzzy control methods were designed to implement the upper-limb robot-aided rehabilitation exercise scheme. And simulations have verified the feasibility of the trajectory tracking scheme. The results have shown that the impedance control performed as great as fuzzy control. Since the impedance control method was also used in the active exercise, it is more suitable for the rehabilitation robot in order to keep the consistency of the controller.