Design and Evaluation of the RUPERT Wearable Upper Extremity Exoskeleton Robot for Clinical and In-Home Therapies

A wearable, portable, low-cost, and easy-to-use upper extremity exoskeleton robot, RUPERT, is presented here for clinical and in-home therapies of patients who have survived a stroke. The robot system has five degrees-of-freedom and is driven by compliant and safe pneumatic muscles. Its primary function is to assist the movement of an affected arm in 3-D space and perform a daily training program in a virtual environment. Subjects are recruited for experiments of both clinical and in-home therapies. While using RUPERT, most subjects exhibited significant improvements in various functional measures. During their in-home therapy trials, subjects expressed enthusiasm regarding the modules and the use of our robotic system. The experimental results look promising and the proposed robotic system exhibits a good prospect for a future commercialized in-home therapy product.