Performance statistics of a head-operated force-reflecting rehabilitation robot system.
Researchers in the rehabilitation engineering community have been designing and developing a variety of passive/active devices to help persons with limited upper extremity function to perform essential daily manipulations. Devices range from low-end tools such as head/mouth sticks to sophisticated robots using vision and speech input. While almost all of the high-end equipment developed to date relies on visual feedback alone to guide the user providing no tactile or proprioceptive cues, the "low-tech" head/mouth sticks deliver better "feel," because of the inherent force feedback through physical contact with the user's body. However, the disadvantage of a conventional head/mouth stick is that it can only function in a limited workspace and the performance is limited by the user's strength. It therefore seems reasonable to attempt to develop a system that exploits the advantages of the two approaches: the power and flexibility of robotic systems with the sensory feedback of a headstick. The system presented in this paper reflects the design philosophy stated above. This system contains a pair of master-slave robots with the master being operated by the user's head and the slave acting as a telestick. Described in this paper are the design, control strategies, implementation and performance evaluation of the head-controlled force-reflecting telestick system.
Chen
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Center for Applied Science and Engineering, University of Delaware/duPont Hospital for Children, Wilmington 19899, USA.
Rahman
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T
Harwin
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W
D000328:Adult; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012046:Rehabilitation / Q000295:instrumentation; D012371:Robotics; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis