Design of an overconstrained manipulator for rehabilitation purposes

In this thesis, an overconstrained mechanism for upper extremity rehabilitation is introduced. The geometry of the selected manipulator was arranged that it fits the exact motion of the arm upper extremity and acts as an exoskeleton. Inverse kinematics calculations are shown for describing the motion of actuators for a desired arm motion. Lagrange Formulation is used for the inverse dynamic model of the system. Due to the geometry of the manipulator, kinematic and dynamic calculations are applied to the two spherical subspaces of the manipulator using imaginary joints. Workspace analysis has been made to verify the motion that the mechanism needs for the specified rehabilitation tasks.