Tsuji“The Cybernetic Rehabilitation Aid: Preliminary Results for Wrist and Elbow

Abstract—This paper proposes the cybernetic rehabilitation aid (CRA) based on the concept of direct teaching using tactile feed-back with electromyography (EMG)-based motor skill evaluation. Evaluation and teaching of motor skills are two important aspects of rehabilitation training, and the CRA provides novel and effec-tive solutions to potentially solve the difficulties inherent in these two processes within a single system. In order to evaluate motor skills, EMG signals measured from a patient are analyzed using a log-linearized Gaussian mixture network that can classify motion patterns and compute the degree of similarity between the patient’s measured EMG patterns and the desired pattern provided by the therapist. Tactile stimulators are used to convey motion instruc-tions from the therapist or the system to the patient, and a rehabil-itation robot can also be integrated into the developed prototype to increase its rehabilitation capacity. A series of experiments per-formed using the developed prototype demonstrated that the CRA can work as a human–human, human–computer and human–ma-chine system. The experimental results indicated that the healthy (able-bodied) subjects were able to follow the desired muscular contraction levels instructed by the therapist or the system and per-form proper joint motion without relying on visual feedback. Index Terms—Direct rehabilitation, electromyography (EMG), human–machine–human interface, rehabilitation robot, tactile feedback. I