Lower limb rehabilitation robot design with dual customized design: Customized gait and customized exoskeleton

Abstract

Under the precondition that walk assistance and rehabilitation functions are achieved, higher demands for lower limb exoskeleton rehabilitation robot from psychological and physiological needs of users are proposed. Based on the analysis of research status of rehabilitation robots, Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method is adopted to conduct demand analysis, define design requirement and make design decision. A lower limb exoskeleton rehabilitation robot with character of customized gait and customized exoskeleton is presented in this paper. Then, in order to standardize the design process of lower limb exoskeleton rehabilitation robot and improve customer satisfaction and intelligence of specific design scheme, Axiomatic Design theory is taken to analyze the mapping process from function domain to physical domain of lower limb exoskeleton rehabilitation robot. Consequently, a triangular matrix of 7 × 7 is obtained, revealing that the design scheme proposed in this paper meets the Independence Axiom well as a decoupled design. The dual customized design scheme of lower limb exoskeleton rehabilitation robot is reliable and valuable.