Design and control of a three degree of freedom pneumatic physiotherapy robot

Stroke is a common condition resulting in 30,000 people per annum left with significant disability. In patients with severe arm paresis after stroke, functional recovery in the affected arm is poor. Inadequate intensity of treatment is cited as one factor accounting for the lack of arm recovery found in some studies. Given that physical therapy resource is limited, strategies to enhance the physiotherapists' efforts are needed. One approach is to use robotic techniques to augment movement therapy. A three degree-of-freedom pneumatic robot has been developed to apply physiotherapy to the upper limb. The robot has been designed with a workspace encompassing the reach-retrieve range of the average male. Control experiments have applied force and then position only controllers to the pneumatic robot. These controllers are combined to form a position-based impedance control strategy on all degrees of freedom of the robot. The impedance controller performance was found to be dependent upon the specified impedance parameters. Initial experiments attaching the device to human subjects have indicated great potential for the device.