Wearable Master-Slave Training Device for Lower Limb Constructed with Pneumatic Rubber Artificial Muscles

Abstract

A robot technology is exceedingly expected to solve a problem of a lack of a physical therapist. In this study, the bilateral type pneumatic wearable master-slave training device used by a trainer and a trainee is developed to feed back a force information to the trainer. In the case of the rehabilitation when separated human attaches the separated device, it has a threat of applying the excessive torque to a patient. To prevent the trainer from increasing excessive torque at the movable angle limit of the trainee, a reaction torque of the slave user is transmitted to the master user.In this paper, the structure of the developed device is discussed, and then the validity of the proposed device is evaluated from the experiments that assume knee rehabilitation.