Patient-tailored Adaptive Control for Robot-aided Orthopaedic Rehabilitation

Abstract

Robot-aided rehabilitation is pushing forward novel robotic architectures to provide physical therapy. This paper presents a patient-tailored control architecture for upper-limb robot-aided orthopaedic rehabilitation capable of i) adapting the robot workspace on the basis of patient Range of Motion (RoM); ii) generating a tunnel, around the desired path to be followed by the patient, which guarantees spatial autonomy; iii) introducing a back-wall inside the tunnel sliding with variable speed on the basis of patient performance to ensure temporal autonomy; iv) rehabilitating to working gestures, thanks to a DMP-based trajectory planner, with the aim of favoring an effective translation of the patient's motor recovery results to the occupational sphere; v) ensuring a patient-tailored assistance also thanks to the evaluation of performance indicators. The designed system was validated demonstrating the adaptability of the system to orthopaedic patient motor imnrovements.