title: Design of a series elastic actuator for a compliant parallel wrist rehabilitation robot.
abstract: This paper presents the design of a novel linear series elastic actuator purposely designed to match the requirements of robots for wrist rehabilitation: backdriveability, intrinsic compliance, and capability to be controlled as ideal force/torque sources. An existing rehabilitation robot is adapted to include intrinsic compliance in the design. A novel linear compliant element is designed to meet dimensional and force/stiffness requirements; a force sensing scheme involving a Hall-effect sensor is optimized in FEM simulations and developed. Linearity tests of the compliant sensing element show a maximum of 4.5% of FSO combined nonlinearity and hysteresis errors. Characterization experiments show that the developed system introduces physical compliance, still guaranteeing accurate force control in a frequency range largely compatible with that required for wrist assistance during rehabilitation.
authors.forename: Fabrizio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sergi
authors.forename: Melissa M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Marcia K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: O'Malley
mesh_terms: D004867:Equipment Design; D005246:Feedback; D020342:Finite Element Analysis; D006801:Humans; D012046:Rehabilitation / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014953:Wrist / Q000502:physiology*