Rehabilitation Robot Using Rubber Artificial Muscle

The number of human requiring the rehabilitation for the fracture of a bone and joint disease caused by the traffic accident and cerebral apoplexy and so on will be increased with the advanced aging society. In the exercise for restoration of function in the rehabilitation, some automatic recovery machines have already been used just for the relatively easy exercise. Moreover, for the complex exercise and evaluation of muscle strength, a multi d.o.f. manipulator is required. However, this kind of robots have not been much developed. Because they require the essential function such as safety and flexibility which are not common in general industrial robots.In this study, we focus on a rubber artificial muscle and apply 2 d.o.f. manipulator using this actuator to the rehabilitation robot for the exercise for restoration of function. By applying the impedance control scheme containing a two d.o.f. PID control system to a positioning loop, a unified control realizes several exercise motion modes required to the execise and evaluation. Through some experiments of trajectory tracking, compliance, and damping control the satisfactory control performance can be obtained. Further, the proposed control system can realize the all exercise motion modes.