Affiliations: School of Mechatronic Engineering and Automation, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Shuai Guo, School of Mechatronic Engineering and Automation, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China. E-mail: guoshuai@i.shu.edu.cn.
Abstract: BACKGROUND: With the population aging, post-stroke patients suffering from hemiplegia are also rapidly increasing. It is essential to provide valid rehabilitation methods for hemiplegia patients. Mirror therapy is an effective rehabilitation method and is widely applied in many rehabilitation robots. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper is to present a path planning method to guarantee the robot’s motion performance during mirror therapy. METHODS: The kinematic framework of the proposed rehabilitation system is detailed, then the reference motion path of the manipulator is calculated according to kinematic transformation. The concept of manipulability is introduced to describe the motion performance of the manipulator. Based on the above work, a path planning method based on A* algorithm is proposed to quantitatively analyze and optimize the motion performance of the manipulator. RESULTS: Preliminary experiments with the proposed rehabilitation system are conducted to verify the proposed path planning method. The characteristics of the proposed method are analyzed through two typical situations. The results showed that the proposed method can build a new path for manipulator, which can ensure the robot’s motion performance and is highly consistent with the reference path. CONCLUSION: The results showed that the manipulator could achieve the task with acceptable error, which indicates the potential of the proposed path planning method for mirror therapy.
