Human-robot coupling dynamic modeling and analysis for upper limb rehabilitation robots.

Background: Upper limb rehabilitation robots have become an important piece of equipment in stroke rehabilitation. Human-robot coupling (HRC) dynamics play a key role in the control of rehabilitation robots to improve human-robot interaction.

Objective: This study aims to study the methods of modeling and analysis of HRC dynamics to realize more accurate dynamic control of upper limb rehabilitation robots.

Methods: By the analysis of force interaction between the human arm and the upper limb rehabilitation robot, the HRC torque is achieved by summing up the robot torque and the human arm torque. The HRC torque and robot torque of a 2-DOF upper limb rehabilitation robot (FLEXO-Arm) are solved by Lagrangian equation and step-by-step dynamic parameters identification method.

Results: The root mean square (RMS) is used to evaluate the accuracy of the HRC torque and the robot torque calculated by the parameter identification, and the error of both is about 10%. Moreover, the HRC torque and the robot torque are compared with the actual torque measured by torque sensors. The error of the robot torque is more than twice the HRC. Therefore, the HRC torque is more accurate than the actual torque.

Conclusions: The proposed HRC dynamics effectively achieves more accurate dynamic control of upper limb rehabilitation robots.