Franchi Giulia, Viereck Ulrich, Platt Robert, Yen Sheng-Che, Hasson Christopher J
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2015;2015:3929-32. doi: 10.1109/EMBC.2015.7319253.
The purpose of this study was to adapt a multipurpose robotic arm for gait rehabilitation. An advantage of this approach is versatility: a robotic arm can be attached to almost any point on the body to assist with lower- and upper-extremity rehabilitation. This may be more cost-effective than purchasing and training rehabilitation staff to use several specialized rehabilitation robots. Robotic arms also have a more human-like morphology, which may make them less intimidating or alien to patients. In this study a mechanical interface was developed that allows a fast, secure, and safe attachment between a robotic arm and a human limb. The effectiveness of this interface was assessed by having two healthy subjects walk on a treadmill with and without a robotic arm attached to their legs. The robot's ability to follow the subjects' swinging legs was evaluated at slow and fast walking speeds. Two different control schemes were evaluated: one using the standard manufacturer-provided control algorithm, and another using a custom algorithm that actively compensated for robot-human interaction forces. The results showed that both robot control schemes performed well for slow walking. There were negligible differences between subjects' gait kinematics with and without the robot. During fast walking with the robot, similar results were obtained for one subject; however, the second subject demonstrated noticeable gait modifications. Together, these results show the feasibility of adapting a multipurpose robotic arm for gait rehabilitation.
本研究的目的是改造一种多功能机器人手臂用于步态康复。这种方法的一个优点是通用性：机器人手臂可以连接到身体上几乎任何部位，以协助进行下肢和上肢康复。这可能比购买和培训康复工作人员使用几种专门的康复机器人更具成本效益。机器人手臂也具有更像人类的形态，这可能会使患者对它们的恐惧感或陌生感降低。在本研究中，开发了一种机械接口，该接口可实现机器人手臂与人体肢体之间快速、牢固且安全的连接。通过让两名健康受试者在跑步机上行走，一次是腿部连接机器人手臂，一次是不连接，来评估该接口的有效性。在慢走和快走速度下评估机器人跟随受试者摆动腿部的能力。评估了两种不同的控制方案：一种使用制造商提供的标准控制算法，另一种使用主动补偿机器人与人体相互作用力的定制算法。结果表明，两种机器人控制方案在慢走时都表现良好。有机器人参与和没有机器人参与时，受试者的步态运动学差异可忽略不计。在有机器人参与的快走过程中，一名受试者获得了类似的结果；然而，第二名受试者表现出明显的步态改变。总之，这些结果表明了改造多功能机器人手臂用于步态康复的可行性。
