Robotic System for Upper Limb Rehabilitation

Currently, cerebrovascular diseases are one of the main health problems. Part of the patient's rehabilitation process, affected by this disease, is manually performed by a physiotherapist, which, due to physical exhaustion, could affect the performance of patient recovery. In this paper is proposed a robotic exoskeleton for upper limb rehabilitation, which enables assist or supports the therapist's work. In the first stage, the exoskeleton is controlled passively through programmed commands and routines. Later, a second stage is proposed for biofeedback control system using the exoskeleton and signals acquired through bioinstrumentation equipment. This system will allows the acquisition of the surface electromyography signals (sEMG), as well as proprioceptive information for signal processing and movement's intention detection of upper limb. As results, are presented the implementation of robotic arm commanded passively and the bioinstrumentation equipment is presented. In the rehabilitation field, this assistive technology will enable to medical staff, to contribute to recovery and welfare of the patient, affected by some kind of muscular dysfunction, with major effectiveness.