Recovering planned trajectories in robotic rehabilitation therapies under the effect of disturbances

Abstract

Robotic rehabilitation is an emerging technology in the field of Neurorehabilitation, which aims to achieve an effective patient recovery. This research focusses on the control strategy for an assistive exoskeleton aiming to reduce the effects of disturbances on planned trajectories during rehabilitation therapies. Disturbances are mostly caused by muscle synergies or by unpredictable actions produced by functional electrical stimulation. The effect of these disturbances can be either assistive or resistive forces depending on the patient’s movement, which increase or decrease the speed of the affected joints by forcing the control unit to act consequently. In some therapies, like gait assistance, it is also essential to maintain synchronization between joint movements, to ensure a dynamic stability. A force control approach is used for all the joints individually, while two control methods are defined to act when disturbances are detected: Cartesian position control (Cartesian level) and Variable execution speed (joint level). The trajectory to be followed by the patient is previously recorded using an active exoskeleton, H1, worn by healthy subjects. A realistic simulation model of the exoskeleton is used for testing the effect of disturbances on the particular joints and on the planned trajectory and for evaluating the performance of the two proposed control methods. The performances of the presented methods are evaluated by comparing the resulting trajectories with respect to those planned. The evaluation of the most suitable method is performed considering the following factors: stability, minimum time delay and synchronization of the joints.