A New 4-DOF Robot for Rehabilitation of Knee and Ankle-Foot Complex: Simulation and Experiment
This addresses a specific issue in rehabilitation robotics for patients needing knee and ankle-foot therapy, but it appears incremental as it focuses on adding DOFs to an existing trainer type.
The researchers tackled the problem of insufficient degrees of freedom in stationary robotic trainers for knee and ankle-foot rehabilitation, which restricts natural motion, by developing a new 4-DOF robot. Results from simulation and testing on a healthy subject show that the system functions naturally and meets rehab training requirements.
Stationary robotic trainers are lower limb rehab robots which often incorporate an exoskeleton attached to a stationary base. The issue observed in the stationery trainers for simultaneous knee and ankle-foot complex joints is that they restrict the natural motion of ankle-foot in the rehab trainings due to the insufficient Degrees of Freedom (DOFs) of these trainers. A new stationary knee-ankle-foot rehab robot with all necessary DOFs is developed here. A typical rehab training is first implemented in simulation, and then tested on a healthy subject. Results show that the proposed system functions naturally and meets the requirements of the desired rehab training.