Compatibility evaluation of a 4-DOF ergonomic exoskeleton for upper limb rehabilitation

Due to their advantages of high durability, low labor intensiveness and high repeatability, upper limb exoskeletons have become promising tools in stroke rehabilitation. The act of decreasing the undesired interactional loads caused by exoskeleton incompatibility remains an enormous challenge in the design of ergonomic exoskeletons. In this article, a novel 4-DOF upper limb exoskeleton that is kinematically compatible with the upper limb is proposed. A prototype of the proposed exoskeleton was developed. Subsequently, the interaction forces, torques and displacements at the physical human-exoskeleton connection interfaces were detected under static and dynamic modes to quantitatively evaluate the compatibility of the exoskeleton. The results indicated that the proposed exoskeleton can significantly decrease the undesired interactional load at the connective interfaces, and its ergonomic design was found to be effective; thus, this exoskeleton may be used for the rehabilitation of human upper limbs. (C) 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.