Implementation of an Upper-Limb Exoskeleton Robot Driven by Pneumatic Muscle Actuators for Rehabilitation

Implementation of a prototype of a 4-degree of freedom (4-DOF) upper-limb exoskeleton robot for rehabilitation was described in this paper. The proposed exoskeleton robot has three DOFs at the shoulder joint and one DOF at the elbow joint. The upper-limb exoskeleton robot is driven by pneumatic muscle actuators (PMA) via steel cables. To implement the passive rehabilitation control, the rehabilitation trajectories expressed in the Fourier series were first planned by the curve fitting. The fuzzy sliding mode controller (FSMC) was then applied to the upper-limb exoskeleton robot for rehabilitation control. Several rehabilitation scenarios were carried out to validate the designed PMA-actuated exoskeleton robot.