Research on Chinese Scraping Automation Based on Sensor-Fusion Method

As a crucial traditional Chinese medicine practice in nursing rehabilitation, the professional gua sha can help to relieve the diseases with the theory of meridians and acupoints. Yet, the automation of gua sha faces several challenges such as insufficient sensor information, meridian quantification, and professional Chinese medicine knowledge. In this article, a gua sha trajectory planning is proposed based on multisensor integrated-gua sha robot system. The gua sha robot utilizes a smart gua sha device and information fusion method to quantify the true scraping processes. A scraping strategy is established by employing force information to correct trajectory and displacement restrictions to extract relevant trajectory. Based on distance likelihood, the gua sha robot develops a series of restrictions on the range, trajectory, quantity, and timing of scraping processes with different body types, and it is precisely controlled to replicate the gua sha force. The accuracy of the scraping trajectory obtained by stabilized numerical integration method based on information fusion and detrended fluctuation analysis (SNIF-DFA) and the effectiveness of the proposed strategy were verified through a series of tests. This article enhances the automatic and accurate reproduction of gua sha, which makes contributions to solving the imbalance of medical resource distribution and liberating professional doctors. The system can also serve as a reference for the development of intelligent service robots, such as massage robots, which must meet trajectory and force requirements.