Robot-assisted gait rehabilitation: From exoskeletons to gait systems

In recent years, robotic technologies have been applied to build assistive robots, such as robotic exoskeletons and rehabilitation robots. Based on the clinical considerations, new trends of rehabilitation, like over-ground rehabilitation robots and home-based mobile rehabilitation robots, have emerged by combining both the knowledge from the exoskeleton and the rehabilitation robots. In this article, we review some of the important assistive and rehabilitation robots, in terms of their hardware, actuation, sensory and controls systems. The paper ends with a discussion on the future trends of the rehabilitation robots, especially on clinical-based considerations.