Development of 2-DOF ankle rehabilitation system

The ankle joint is critical to upright balance control and gait function, and is a common location for orthopedic or neurological injuries - e.g., every year in the US 628,000 people suffer ankle sprains and 795,000 suffer a stroke. The Virtually-Interfaced Robotic Ankle and Balance Trainer (vi-RABT) is a rehabilitation system designed to help such individuals improve their ankle and balance control. The system is equipped with two actuators and complete mechanisms for torque and angle measurement. A model-based proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller was tuned and implemented into the system and an interactive maze game was augmented to provide an entertaining rehabilitation experience. We present results of a pilot test on these system features. Vi-RABT shows promise for treating a wide variety of ankle and balance disorders.