An upper-body rehabilitation exoskeleton Harmony with an anatomical shoulder mechanism: Design, modeling, control, and performance evaluation

Abstract

We present an upper-body exoskeleton for rehabilitation, called Harmony, that provides natural coordinated motions on the shoulder with a wide range of motion, and force and impedance controllability. The exoskeleton consists of an anatomical shoulder mechanism with five active degrees of freedom, and one degree of freedom elbow and wrist mechanisms powered by series elastic actuators. The dynamic model of the exoskeleton is formulated using a recursive Newton–Euler algorithm with spatial dynamics representation. A baseline control algorithm is developed to achieve dynamic transparency and scapulohumeral rhythm assistance, and the coupled stability of the robot–human system at the baseline control is investigated. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the kinematic and dynamic characteristics of the exoskeleton. The results show that the exoskeleton exhibits good kinematic compatibility to the human body with a wide range of motion and performs task-space force and impedance control behaviors reliably.