A universal haptic device for arm and wrist rehabilitation

Abstract

Robot-mediated rehabilitation is rapidly advancing field. However, robots that are used for rehabilitation purposes are usually single task oriented. One approach to overcome that issue is in introducing robotic devices with more Degrees-of-Freedom (DOF), which means complicated and expensive design. This paper presents the design of a universal haptic device (UHD) for arm and wrist rehabilitation, with only 2-DOF drive. The essence of the developed device is in mechanical design, which enables the rehabilitation of the upper limb in two different modes; “ARM” and “WRIST” mode. By simple mechanical reconfiguration it is possible to switch between both modes, which enables gradual rehabilitation of complete upper limb. Device is actuated by 2-DOF haptic drive based on Series Elastic Actuation (SEA).