Design and control of an upper limb rehabilitation robot using hybrid impedance control

In this thesis, it is realized to design, produce and control of a robotic system, which is used for wrist and forearm rehabilitation and which helps the physiotherapist in the process of rehabilitation. The system is called Fizyoterabot/w1. It is also aimed that the designed system can perform passive, active assistive and active resistive (isometric, isotonic and isokinetic) exercises, must have an easy interface to use and understand, can store the therapy results so can be possible to monitor the condition of the patient in the process of rehabilitation. To realize these aims, a 3-dof (degree of freedom) robotic system was designed and produced in order to perform the movements flexion-extension, abduction-adduction for wrist and the movement pronation-supination for forearm and also in order to be adjustable according to the length of the limb. It was developed a human-machine interface in order to control the system. Hybrid impedance control, which allows to control the position and force in one control structure by adjusting the mechanical impedance of the position and force control. The contribution to literature of this thesis is having an originallity in mechanical design and being the first study which models the therapeutic exercises by using hybrid impedance control method.