Robotic arm for unsupervised stroke rehabilitation: a pilot study using PID controller

Stroke is one of the leading causes of disability in the world and Post-stroke rehabilitation trainings are considered to be essential on helping stroke patients to regain the functionality of their body. However, most of the rehabilitation trainings can only be performed under professional supervision inside hospital or caring facilities and as a result, large number of expenditure is generated. In recent years, substantial amount of researches on Robot assisted rehabilitation systems have been carried out to find an alternate to the expensive and labor intensive conventional method that is currently in use. This paper proposed a novel robot assisted rehabilitation training system which utilized multiple feedback and PID control method to drive an upper limb exoskeleton that can help stroke patient to perform both predefined exercises and voluntary movements. Preliminary experiment has been conducted using a SCORBOT-ERIII robotic arm which was controlled by a SIMULINK model in XPC target environment.