Conformational Design and Kinematic Analysis of a Reconfigurable Ankle Rehabilitation Robot

Abstract

The ankle joint bears the most weight of the human joint, every year there are many people suffer from different types and degrees of ankle injuries, and their rehabilitation needs are diversified, in order to carry out targeted rehabilitation for ankle injuries, a reconfigurable ankle rehabilitation robot with seven modes is designed. Firstly, the skeletal structure of the human ankle joint as well as the form of movement were determined. Based on the physiological structure, size and movement mode of the human ankle joint, the reconfigurable ankle rehabilitation robot was configured and designed, and a parallel mechanism with seven rehabilitation modes was proposed, and the overall layout of the mechanism is introduced, and then the design of each branch chain of the mechanism is elaborated, and the switching between modes is introduced, and the degrees of freedom and the nature of motion of the mechanism are analyzed in each mode. Finally, the degree of freedom analysis was carried out based on the spiral theory; finally, the kinematic inverse solution of the mechanism in each mode was solved and verified by simulation, and the results showed that this reconfigurable ankle rehabilitation mechanism meets the demand of ankle rehabilitation.