Force Control Strategy and Bench Press Experimental Research of a Cable Driven Astronaut Rehabilitative Training Robot

This paper presents a cable driven astronaut rehabilitative training (ART) robot, which can provide astronauts with multiple physical exercises including bench press, running, and deep squat to alleviate and resist the adverse effects induced by space adaptation syndrome. First, the modular reconfiguration of the ART driven by a cable is proposed to simulate the load characteristics of the gravity environment. Second, in order to improve the accuracy of the ART, the force control strategy is presented. The controller consists of two parts: high-level controller, which to calculate the desired cable tension and low-level controller, which to make each cable achieve the desired tension. Finally, to validate the effect of the ART, three (adult male) weight lifters were recruited to perform several bench press exercises with the barbell and ART. The analysis of the surface electromyography (sEMG) of triceps brachii and pectoralis major during real bench press and bench press simulated by the ART was conducted. The performance of the ART and the data of sEMG demonstrate the controller is effective and the ART can effectively assist astronauts to carry out bench press exercises in space.