A kinematic model of an upper limb rehabilitation robot system

Abstract

This paper presents a kinematic model of an upper limb rehabilitation robot system based on Denavit-Hartenberg parameters method. The system possesses advantages of less weight, compact size, and interaction in the rehabilitation process. Furthermore it can provide a sufficient work room for the patient's upper limb. This system mainly consists of an upper limb exoskeleton rehabilitation device (ULERD), a haptic device called PHANTOM Premium, and an interactive virtual reality environment. The proposed rehabilitation robot system is a master-slave system. The impaired hand is hard bolted to the ULERD, so the doctor (or the intact hand of patients) can move the stylus of PHAMTOM Premium and guide the injured hand to move along some predefined training track. This paper aims to establish a kinematic model of the rehabilitation robot system. A kinematic model focusing on the ULERD and the PHANTOM Premium is built to ensure the consistency for both the Phantom side and ULERD side. DH-parameters-based modeling can be an effective method in kinematic modeling of a robot.