A multi-lateral rehabilitation system

This paper proposes a multi-lateral shared control concept for robot assisted rehabilitation. In particular, a dual-user force-feedback teleoperation control architecture is implemented on a forearm-wrist rehabilitation system consisting of two kinematically dissimilar robotic devices. The multi-lateral rehabilitation system allows for patients to train with on-line virtual dynamic tasks in collaboration with a therapist. Different control authority can be assigned to each agent so that therapists can guide or evaluate movements of patients, or share the control with them. The collaboration is implemented using a dual-user force-feedback teleoperation control architecture, in which a dominance factor determines the authority of each agent in commanding the virtual task. The effectiveness of the controller and regulation of the dominance for each agent is experimentally verified.