A Lower Limb Rehabilitation Robot with Rigid-Flexible Characteristics and Multi-Mode Exercises

Abstract

Lower limb rehabilitation robot (LLRR) can effectively help restore the lower limb’s motor function of patients with hemiplegia caused by stroke through a large number of targeted and repetitive rehabilitation training. To improve the safety and comfort of robot-assisted lower limb rehabilitation, we developed an LLRR with rigid-flexible characteristics; the design of passive joints is used to improve human-machine compatibility; the design of flexible unit makes the mechanism have certain rigid-flexible characteristics. Three different rehabilitation training methods have been developed to adapt to the patients at different stages of rehabilitation, namely, passive exercise, active exercise and resistance exercise, respectively. Experiments with healthy subjects have been conducted to verify the effectiveness of the development of the different training modes of the LLRR, showing good compatibility of the mechanism and good trajectory tracking performance of the developed training methods.