Intelligent controller of SEFRE rehab system

The Intelligent Controller (IC) has been developed in Shoulder-Elbow-Forearm Robotics Economic rehabilitation system (SEFRE Rehab System). SEFRE Rehab System is composed of a robotic manipulator and an exoskeleton, i.e. Forearm Supportive Mechanism (FSM). The IC is the most intelligent software controller which is capable of controlling every module in the SEFRE Rehab System effectively. This paper will focus on the implementation details of IC and sFSM. sFSM, another autonomous controller, has been proposed and developed separately to control only FSM automatically. According to the control concept of SEFRE Rehab System in the previous paper, all important functions of IC have been developed and improved continuously. To understand IC more, IC scheme is presented to show IC capabilities such as robot and FSM communication, saftey control etc. To apply Dynamixel motor of FSM for a high torque application, e.g. elbow motor, a gearbox must be added as well as PID controller and round-counting software module as an encoder must be developed in sFSM. The SEFRE rehab system is designed to rehabilitate the individual joints and the combined joints for activities of daily life, so the synchronizations between Robot and FSM controlled by IC have been developed to control their motion naturally. The experiments are tested the performance of IC synchronization at some certain ranges of muscle weakness, these results show satisfied and good synchronizations between Robot and FSM in active and passive modes.