A Virtual Head - Stick Rehabilitation Robot

For individuals with upper-extremity motor disabilities , the head-stick is a simple and intuitive means of performing manipulations because it provides direct proprioceptive information to the user. Through practice and use of inherent proprioceptive cues, users may become quite adept at using the head-stick for a number of diierent tasks. The traditional head-stick is limited, however, to the user's achievable range of head motion and force generation, which may be in-suucient for many tasks. We describe an interface to a robot system which emulates the proprioceptive qualities of a traditional head-stick while also allowing for augmented end-eeector ranges of force and motion. The design and implementation of the system in terms of coordinate transforms, bilateral tele-manipulator architecture, safety systems, and system identiication of the master is described, in addition to preliminary evaluation results.