Design of the pediatric arm rehabilitation robot ChARMin

Abstract

In adult patients with motor impairments, such as stroke, actuated robots are available to provide an intensive rehabilitation training and to actively assist, enhance and assess neurorehabilitation. However, there is currently no actuated robot available specifically designed for the rehabilitation of children with upper extremity motor impairments. Therefore, ChARMin was designed, an arm exoskeleton robot to assist arm movements for young patients, especially children with cerebral palsy. The first prototype has four degrees of freedom for the shoulder and elbow. The design is based on a serial mechanical structure together with parallel kinematics for remote center of rotation actuation. This approach allows to keep a safe distance between parts of the robot and the patient and it reduces friction, while being highly adaptable to cover the large anthropometric range of the patients aged 5 to 18 years.