Design and Development of Cable Driven Upper Limb Exoskeleton for Arm Rehabilitation

this paper describes the design and kinematic analysis of a 5 DOF upper limb powered robotic exoskeleton for rehabilitation of the patients who survived stroke and the elderly who do not have enough strength to move their limbs freely. It was observed that the existing upper extremity exoskeletons were bulky and heavy which made them limited to applications and the complexity of the system increases with the number of DOF's considered. Therapies in rehabilitation process doesn't require much complex designs. This create a need to develop an exoskeleton which is economical, light weight device to provide more dexterity than the existing one. The proposed wearable exoskeleton builds upon our research experience in wire driven manipulators and design of rehabilitative systems. The cable drive system will help in reducing the overall weight of the Exoskeleton. This non-localized actuation system allows the use of more powerful motor enabling greater lifting strength for the user. The system was designed to create an intention-driven robotic control approach, by which the exoskeleton can assist the user to move the arm during the rehabilitation process. The cad model of exoskeleton and its fabrication using light weight material and its kinematic analysis, Simulink simulation are explained in this paper.