Design and prototype of an active assistive exoskeletal robot for rehabilitation of elbow and wrist

Abstract

Due to the increasing number of people su ering from physical disabilities in the elbow and wrist, developing an assistive wearable robot seems crucial. These disabilities are mostly common in elderly people and people who are su ering from spinal injury or stroke. In this paper, a wearable assistive robot for rehabilitation of the wrist and elbow is developed. The mechanism has 3 Degree of Freedom (DoF); two active DoF for assisting the flexion/extension of the elbow and wrist, and a passive one in order to have unconstrained supination/pronation of the forearm. The motors and sensors were chosen based on kinematic constraints governing the motion of arms and wrists. Finally, with the intention of evaluating the performance of the robot, some preliminary experiments were conducted using a prototype of the designed wearable robot. Experimental results showed that the proposed assistive robot meets its design goals and can assist patient motion in the desired DoF.