Designing Unpowered Shoulder Complex Exoskeleton via Contralateral Drive for Self-rehabilitation of Post-stroke Hemiparesis

Rehabilitation using exoskeleton robots can effectively remediate dysfunction and restore post-stroke survivors’ physical ability. However, low kinematic compatibility and poor self-participation of post-stroke patients in rehabilitation restrict the outcomes of exoskeleton-based therapy. The study presents an Unpowered Shoulder Complex Exoskeleton (USCE), consisting of Shoulder Girdle Mechanism (SGM), Ball-and-Socket Joint Mechanism (BSM), Gravity Compensating Mechanism (GCM) and Adjustable Alignment Design (AAD), to achieve self-rehabilitation of shoulder via energy transfer from the healthy upper limb to the affected counterpart of post-stroke hemiplegic patients. The SGM and AAD are designed to improve the kinematic compatibility by compensating for displacements of the glenohumeral joint with the adaptable size of USCE for different wearers. The BSM and GCM can transfer the body movement and energy from the healthy half of the body to the affected side without external energy input and enhance the self-participation with sick posture correction. The experimental results show that the USCE can provide high kinematic compatibility with 90.9% movement similarity between human and exoskeleton. Meanwhile, the motion ability of a post-stroke patient’s affected limb can be increased through energy transfer. It is expected that USCE can improve outcomes of home-based self-rehabilitation.