Design of an exoskeletal robot for human elbow motion support

Abstract

We are stepping into an aging society rapidly. In that society, it is important that physically weak people are able to take care of themselves. In this paper, we introduce a 1DOF exoskeletal robot to support the elbow motion of physically weak people. Fuzzy control has been applied to control the exoskeletal robot system based on vague biological signals that reflect the human subject's intention. Skin surface electromyogram (EMG) signals and the generated force by the human subject's wrist during the human elbow motion have been used as input information of the fuzzy controller.