Design, Fabrication, and Testing of a Microelectronic Controller for Sensing and Actuating in Robotic Neurorehabilitation

Abstract

Chronic immobility brings health complications on a wide spectrum of pathologies. Patients on these conditions daily need assistance, especially bedridden, and with neuromuscular disorders, which may contain rehabilitation activities to, hence, improve the partial or full recovery of their mobility. Sessions that promote aerobic exercises are still the most recommended therapies. This article proposes an embedded electronic board (EEB) as an open development system oriented to help in fastening the automation of prototypes and medical robotics applications. EEB contains a microcontroller with peripherals that permit sensor data acquisition, manipulate actuators commonly used on medical devices, and being interfaced with computers that may contain customized graphical user interface (GUI). Three test sets have been conducted to validate the reliability of the inverse kinematics and convenience on the automation improvement to obtain current demand by channel and check electrical integrity. An experiment to see the temperature variation on human face, due to an infrared sensing, compared with gradually changing the position of the body has been carried out. Results show an accuracy on the long run of activity with 99.0% and 99.7% on 400- and <inline-formula xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\le 120$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-mm stroke actuators without recalibration components; the face-based infrared sensing, in conjunction with movements, has demonstrated to be an excellent monitoring for detecting the eye vascularization in the effort to display eventual cardiac abnormalities. This is the first time for this kind of approach. Results have increased the automation capabilities of the bed, offering new features that enhance its fields of application together with significant economic savings.