Therapeutic Control Method for Robotic-aided Rehabilitation Training Based on Hybrid Theory

The current robot-aided therapeutic control methods are mainly designed from the viewpoints of robotic continuous variable motor control or therapist's discrete event decision control, and the system's hybrid characteristics are not incorporated into a unified framework. In order to solve the aforementioned limits, the continuous and discrete hybrid characteristics of robot-aided rehabilitation are firstly analyzed, and a new robot-aided therapeutic control method using hybrid control theory is proposed with progressive resistance muscle training as an example. The presented method defines discrete system control states, control output vector and continuous system state transitions discrete symbols for muscle strength training, by which a discrete event decision controller is constructed using hybrid automaton. Clinical experimental results indicate that the robot-aided rehabilitation using the proposed hybrid therapeutic controller has good efficacy and practicality.