A Biomechanical Model to Aid Robot-Assisted Therapy of Upper Limb Impairment

This paper describes the design, and application of a dynamic bio-mechanical model for assessing and monitoring trajectory, position, orientation, force and torque generated by movements of the whole upper limb during a robot-assisted therapy. The individualised segment inertial parameters are based on anthropometric measurements. The model performs inverse dynamic analysis of the recorded arm´s movements to calculate reaction forces and moments acting about the 3-DOF shoulder and 2-DOF elbow joints. A real time fused biofeedback of a 6-DOF force sensor and 3D pose sensors support the model. The model input and output parameters are stored in the patients´ database, which is a part of the rehabilitation information system. Our experimental results confirm the nature of the treatment exercise taught to the robotic systems