Preliminary Design of a Robotic Exoskeleton for Arm Rehabilitation

Abstract

This research paper presents the design of a low-cost and easy-to-use 2 degree of freedom (DOF) robotic exoskeleton for arm rehabilitation. The developed exoskeleton consists of a 2 DOF robotic arm attached on a chair. Force sensitive resistors are also utilized in the design of the device to measure muscles activities during rehabilitation process. Kinovea software is used to analyse the performance of the patient during exercise via video capture. The measured data hopefully can assist physicians and caregivers in designing suitable rehabilitation process for stroke patient. The proposed design provides a novel tool towards upper limb stroke rehabilitation process. Although there are many exoskeleton robotics arms which are commercially available, however, due to the disadvantages such as weight, high-cost and complex mechanisms, this paper proposed new ideas on solving these problems by designing an exoskeleton which is functional, low-cost and users friendly