TY - JOUR
T1 - Integration of variable stiffness actuators in a five-bar device to assist in active rehabilitation of the arm
AU - Contreras-Calderón, M. G.
AU - Castillo-Castañeda, E.
AU - Laribi, M. A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, Springer Nature B.V.
PY - 2022/3
Y1 - 2022/3
N2 - Active arm rehabilitation involves restoring muscle tone by applying force to the arm to produce traction and compression on the muscles. Devices for rehabilitation assistance can be exoskeleton or end-effector type. This paper uses an end-effector type device, which provides an opposing force to the patient’s arm’s movement to tone their muscles during active rehabilitation. To provide that force, large and expensive motors with high torque are required. In order to avoid the use of motors, it is proposing a variable stiffness actuator integrated into a five-bar mechanism for active arm rehabilitation assistance in this work. The five-bar mechanism has a pantograph attached to amplify the workspace and emulates the arm rehabilitation trajectories, the patient holding onto the end-effector to trace the trajectories. The end-effector provides a constant opposing force to the patient’s arm’s movement, which activates the muscles. Thus, our proposal is the integration of an actuator with variable stiffness to replace the motors. The mechanism synthesis is presented to determine the parameters to vary the stiffness that provides a constant force in the five-bar mechanism end-effector.
AB - Active arm rehabilitation involves restoring muscle tone by applying force to the arm to produce traction and compression on the muscles. Devices for rehabilitation assistance can be exoskeleton or end-effector type. This paper uses an end-effector type device, which provides an opposing force to the patient’s arm’s movement to tone their muscles during active rehabilitation. To provide that force, large and expensive motors with high torque are required. In order to avoid the use of motors, it is proposing a variable stiffness actuator integrated into a five-bar mechanism for active arm rehabilitation assistance in this work. The five-bar mechanism has a pantograph attached to amplify the workspace and emulates the arm rehabilitation trajectories, the patient holding onto the end-effector to trace the trajectories. The end-effector provides a constant opposing force to the patient’s arm’s movement, which activates the muscles. Thus, our proposal is the integration of an actuator with variable stiffness to replace the motors. The mechanism synthesis is presented to determine the parameters to vary the stiffness that provides a constant force in the five-bar mechanism end-effector.
KW - Antagonist spring
KW - Arm rehabilitation
KW - Five-bar mechanism
KW - Variable stiffness joint
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85123083479&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11012-021-01462-9
DO - 10.1007/s11012-021-01462-9
M3 - Artículo
AN - SCOPUS:85123083479
SN - 0025-6455
VL - 57
SP - 697
EP - 706
JO - Meccanica
JF - Meccanica
IS - 3
ER -