Rigid-flexible coupling external muscle robot and exercise training method

Abstract

The invention belongs to the technical field of robots, and provides a rigid-flexible coupling external muscle robot and an exercise training method.The rigid-flexible coupling external muscle robot comprises a binding device, a flexible external muscle driving system and a rigid supporting system; the binding device comprises flexible wearing assemblies fixed to the shoulders, the back and the abdomen of a user. The flexible external muscle driving system comprises pneumatic artificial muscle driving units, and the pneumatic artificial muscle driving units are connected to flexible wearing assemblies at different parts through anchor points so as to achieve forward flexion, dorsal flexion, lateral flexion and torsion of the trunk. The rigid supporting system is of a four-degree-of-freedom parallel passive rigid structure and provides passive damping changing along with the movement speed, and the rigid supporting system is located on the outer side of the flexible outer muscle driving system and connected to the flexible wearing assemblies at different parts through anchor points. The robot can conform to the natural motion curve of the human body, provides flexible assistance, can also provide necessary mechanical support and safety protection, and has the multi-degree-of-freedom training ability.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

[0001] The present application belongs to the technical field of robots, and relates to a rehabilitation training robot, in particular to a rigid-flexible coupling outer muscle robot for trunk training and a motion training method. BACKGROUND

[0002] In recent years, with the aggravation of the population aging trend and the frequent occurrence of unexpected events such as traffic accidents and work injuries, the number of patients with stroke, spinal cord injury and nervous system degenerative diseases is increasing year by year. Such diseases often lead to damage to the central nervous system of patients, and further cause serious motor dysfunction. Among them, the trunk, as the core part of the human body, plays a key role in connecting the upper and lower limbs, maintaining body balance and transmitting motion force. The loss of trunk control ability (such as weakness of the core muscle group and abnormal posture of the spine) will cause the patient to be unable to complete basic daily life actions such as sitting balance, turning over and standing up, and long-term bedridden will cause complications such as muscle atrophy and pressure sores, seriously affecting the quality of life of patients.

[0003] Existing rehabilitation medicine theory shows that based on the principle of neural plasticity, early, scientific and repeated motion rehabilitation training can effectively activate the damaged neural pathways and promote the remodeling of the trunk core muscle group function. For the recovery of trunk function, it mainly includes sitting balance training, trunk flexion / rotation range of motion training and sitting posture conversion training, etc.

[0004] However, traditional trunk rehabilitation training mainly relies on "one-to-one" or even "many-to-one" manual assistance by rehabilitation therapists. The therapists need to manually lift the upper body of the patient for passive or assisted motion, which is extremely labor-intensive and extremely dependent on the personal experience and physical ability of the therapists. In addition, manual training is difficult to ensure the consistency of the motion trajectory and the quantification of the training intensity, and it is also difficult for therapists to accurately perceive the weak active force intention of the patient's trunk and give immediate assistance as needed. To solve the above problems, rehabilitation robot technology has emerged. The current trunk rehabilitation robots are mainly divided into two categories: rigid exoskeletons and flexible exoskeletons, but they have certain limitations in actual application: Traditional rigid trunk exoskeletons usually adopt a series of link mechanisms, which can provide strong mechanical support and protection, but generally have poor human-machine motion compatibility. The human spine movement is a complex spatial coupling movement composed of multiple vertebral micro-motions, and a simple rigid hinge is difficult to accurately fit the instantaneous center of rotation of the human spine, which is easy to cause "human-machine centering error", produce additional internal force, and make the patient feel uncomfortable or even cause secondary injury. In addition, the rigid structure is usually bulky and has large inertia, which increases the wearing burden of the patient and makes it difficult to achieve natural compliant motion.

[0005] Although flexible exoskeletons have the advantages of light weight, good compliance and comfortable wearing, their mechanical support ability is seriously insufficient. Due to the lack of the constraint of rigid skeleton, the flexible exoskeletons are difficult to limit the abnormal displacement of the spine (such as dislocation caused by shear force), and cannot provide sufficient safety protection for patients with extremely weak core. Especially when the patient is in the process of sitting up or suffers from spasm, the pure flexible system often cannot provide enough passive stiffness to maintain the upright posture of the torso, and there is a risk of falling.

[0006] In addition, existing trunk rehabilitation devices often ignore the demand for multi-degree-of-freedom coupled motion, and most of them can only realize single-plane flexion and extension motion, lacking training support for complex motions such as lateral flexion and torsion. At the same time, in view of the common problem of forward body leaning caused by insufficient back strength during the sitting-up process of patients, the existing devices lack targeted dynamic posture correction and strengthening mechanism. SUMMARY

[0007] To overcome the deficiencies of the prior art, a rigid-flexible coupled exomuscular robot and a motion training method are provided. The robot can not only conform to the natural motion curve of the human body and provide compliant assistance, but also provide necessary mechanical support and safety protection, and has multi-degree-of-freedom training capability. The coordinated contraction and relaxation of the exomuscle composed of pneumatic artificial muscles between the "anchor points" of the binding device realizes the forward flexion, back flexion, lateral flexion and torsion of the trunk.

[0008] A rigid-flexible coupled exomuscular robot comprises a binding device, a flexible exomuscular driving system and a rigid support system; The binding device comprises a flexible wearing component fixed to the shoulders, back and abdomen of the user; The flexible exomuscular driving system comprises a pneumatic artificial muscle driving unit connected to different parts of the flexible wearing component to realize forward flexion, back flexion, lateral flexion and torsion of the trunk; The rigid support system is a four-degree-of-freedom parallel passive rigid structure, which provides passive damping varying with the motion speed. The rigid support system is located outside the flexible exomuscular driving system and is connected to different parts of the flexible wearing component.

[0009] Further, the flexible wearing component comprises an abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt, a back and abdominal binding fixed belt, a shoulder binding belt, an abdominal binding belt and a shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt. The shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt passes around the shoulder and is fixed, the abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt passes around the abdomen and is fixed through the back and abdominal binding fixed belt, the shoulder binding belt is arranged outside the shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt and binds the shoulder around the armpit, and the abdominal binding belt is located outside the abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt and is bound around.

[0010] Further, the front and back of the shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt are respectively arranged with shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle anchors, and the front and back of the abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt are respectively arranged with abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle anchors.

[0011] Further, the front chest right pneumatic artificial muscle, the chest left pneumatic artificial muscle, the back left pneumatic artificial muscle and the back right pneumatic artificial muscle are respectively connected with the shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt and the abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt through the shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle anchors and the abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle anchors.

[0012] A movement training method of a rigid-flexible coupling external muscle robot, the movement control logic of the flexible external muscle driving system is that the front chest right pneumatic artificial muscle and the chest left pneumatic artificial muscle are synchronously contracted, the back left pneumatic artificial muscle and the back right pneumatic artificial muscle are synchronously relaxed to realize forward bending of the trunk. The back left pneumatic artificial muscle and the back right pneumatic artificial muscle are synchronously contracted, and the front chest right pneumatic artificial muscle and the chest left pneumatic artificial muscle are synchronously relaxed to realize back bending of the trunk. The front chest right pneumatic artificial muscle and the back right pneumatic artificial muscle are synchronously contracted, the chest left pneumatic artificial muscle is synchronously contracted and the back left pneumatic artificial muscle is synchronously relaxed to realize right lateral bending of the trunk. The chest left pneumatic artificial muscle is synchronously contracted and the back left pneumatic artificial muscle is synchronously contracted, and the front chest right pneumatic artificial muscle and the back right pneumatic artificial muscle are synchronously relaxed to realize left lateral bending of the trunk. The front chest right pneumatic artificial muscle and the back left pneumatic artificial muscle are cross-diagonal synchronously contracted to realize left lateral torsion of the trunk, and the chest left pneumatic artificial muscle and the back right pneumatic artificial muscle are cross-diagonal synchronously contracted to realize left lateral torsion of the trunk. The present application has the following beneficial effects compared with the prior art: The external muscle composed of the pneumatic artificial muscle is synchronously contracted and relaxed between the binding devices ''anchors'' to realize forward bending, back bending and lateral bending of the trunk, the rigid support system adopts a four-degree-of-freedom parallel passive rigid structure connected between the chest and the abdomen to provide passive damping changing with speed, through the rigid-flexible coupling design, the human muscle distribution is conformed to realize multi-degree-of-freedom compliant movement, and the core stability protection and mechanical support are provided through the rigid support, and the problems of movement limitation of the traditional exoskeleton and insufficient support of the pure flexible exoskeleton are effectively solved.

[0013] The scheme of the present application will be further described below in combination with the drawings and embodiments: DRAWINGS

[0014] Figure 1 It is a front view of a flexible driving system of a rigid-flexible coupling external muscle robot of the present application; Figure 2 Rear view of the flexible driving system of the rigid-flexible coupled exoskeleton robot of the present application; Figure 3 Rear view of the rigid support system of the rigid-flexible coupled exoskeleton robot of the present application; Figure 4 Rear view of the rigid support system of the rigid-flexible coupled exoskeleton robot of the present application; Figure 5 Rear view of the rigid-flexible coupled exoskeleton robot of the present application; Figure 6 Rear view of the rigid-flexible coupled exoskeleton robot of the present application.

[0015] In the figure: 1-shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle anchor point, 2-right front chest pneumatic artificial muscle, 3-abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt, 4-left front chest pneumatic artificial muscle, 5-abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle anchor point, 6-left back pneumatic artificial muscle, 7-right back pneumatic artificial muscle, 8-back abdominal binding and fixing belt, 9-shoulder universal joint anchor point, 10-front chest spring damper, 11-abdominal universal joint anchor point, 12-shoulder abdominal binding belt, 13-abdominal binding belt, 14-abdominal variable universal joint anchor point, 15-back shoulder universal joint anchor point, 16-back spring damper, 17-back abdominal universal joint anchor point, 18-shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0016] The embodiments of the technical scheme of the present application will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings. Unless otherwise specified, the technical terms or scientific terms used in the present application are the commonly understood meanings by the skilled in the art.

[0017] Traditional rigid trunk exoskeletons usually adopt series connection linkage mechanisms, but generally have the problem of poor man-machine motion compatibility. The rigid structure is usually bulky and has large inertia, which increases the wearing burden of the patient and makes it difficult to achieve natural compliant motion.

[0018] The flexible exoskeleton has a serious lack of mechanical support capability. Due to the lack of constraints of the rigid skeleton, the flexible exoskeleton is difficult to limit the abnormal displacement of the spine, and cannot provide sufficient safety protection for patients with extremely weak core. Especially when the patient is in the process of sitting and standing conversion or suffers from spasm, the pure flexible system often cannot provide sufficient passive stiffness to maintain the upright posture of the trunk, and there is a risk of falling. In addition, existing trunk rehabilitation devices often ignore the demand for multi-degree-of-freedom coupled motion, and most of them can only realize flexion and extension motion in a single plane, lacking training support for complex motions such as lateral bending and twisting. At the same time, in view of the problem of forward body leaning caused by insufficient back strength during the sitting and standing conversion process of the patient, the existing devices lack targeted dynamic posture correction and strengthening mechanism.

[0019] Embodiment 1, parameters Figures 1-6 The embodiment provides a rigid-flexible coupling exomuscular robot for trunk movement training, which can realize forward bending, back bending and lateral bending of the trunk by using the coordinated contraction and relaxation of exomuscles between the anchor points of the binding device.

[0020] Specifically, the rigid-flexible coupling exomuscular robot of the embodiment comprises a binding device, a flexible exomuscle driving system and a rigid support system. The binding device comprises a flexible wearing component fixed to the shoulders, back and abdomen of a user. The flexible exomuscle driving system comprises a pneumatic artificial muscle driving unit connected to the anchor points of the flexible wearing component at different positions to realize forward bending, back bending, lateral bending and torsion of the trunk. The rigid support system is a four-degree-of-freedom parallel passive rigid structure, which provides passive damping varying with the movement speed. The rigid support system is located outside the flexible exomuscle driving system and is connected to the anchor points of the flexible wearing component at different positions.

[0021] The flexible wearing component comprises an abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt 3, a back and abdominal binding fixed belt 8, a shoulder binding belt 12, an abdominal binding belt 13 and a shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt 18. The shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt 18 is wrapped around the shoulder and bound to the human body, the abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt 3 is wrapped around the abdomen and fixed through the back and abdominal binding fixed belt 8, the shoulder binding belt 12 is arranged outside the shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt 18 and bound to the shoulder through the armpit, and the abdominal binding belt 13 is located outside the abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt 3 and wrapped around the abdomen of the human body.

[0022] The flexible wearable component is provided with a plurality of adjustable anchor points connected with the pneumatic muscle according to the human joint, and the two ends of the pneumatic artificial muscle are connected to the flexible wearable component at different positions through the anchor points; for example, the flexible external muscle driving system includes four pneumatic artificial muscle driving units, each of which is a pneumatic artificial muscle, and is respectively a front chest right side pneumatic artificial muscle 2, a chest left side pneumatic artificial muscle 4, a back left side pneumatic artificial muscle 6 and a back right side pneumatic artificial muscle 7, the front part and the rear part of the shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding 18 are respectively and left-right symmetrically arranged with shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle anchor points 1, the front part and the rear part of the abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt 3 are respectively and left-right symmetrically arranged with abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle anchor points 5, the front chest right side pneumatic artificial muscle 2, the chest left side pneumatic artificial muscle 4, the back left side pneumatic artificial muscle 6 and the back right side pneumatic artificial muscle 7 are respectively connected with the shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt 18 and the abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding belt 3 through the shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle anchor points 1 and the abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle anchor points 5.

[0023] The front chest right side pneumatic artificial muscle 2 and the chest left side pneumatic artificial muscle 4 are in a "V" shape distribution; the back left side pneumatic artificial muscle 6 and the back right side pneumatic artificial muscle 7 are in a "V" shape distribution. The four pneumatic artificial muscles can move cooperatively and contract and dilate. For example, the front part of the two shoulder binding belts 12 is left-right symmetrically provided with shoulder universal joint anchor points 9, the rear part of the two shoulder binding belts 12 is left-right symmetrically provided with back shoulder universal joint anchor points 15; the front part of the abdominal binding belt 13 is left-right symmetrically distributed with abdominal universal joint anchor points 11, and the back part of the abdominal binding belt 13 is left-right symmetrically distributed with back abdominal universal joint anchor points 17. The rigid support system is a four-degree-of-freedom parallel passive rigid support, which adopts a 4-UPU (universal joint-movable pair-universal joint) configuration, and the movable pair connecting rod is a spring damper. The rigid support system is installed and connected outside the flexible external muscle driving system, which includes a front chest spring damper 10 and a back spring damper 16, wherein the front chest spring damper 10 is distributed left-right symmetrically on the human chest, and is respectively fixed on the shoulder universal joint anchor point 9 and the abdominal universal joint anchor point 11; the back spring damper 16 is distributed left-right symmetrically on the human back, and is respectively fixed on the back shoulder universal joint anchor point 15 and the back abdominal universal joint anchor point 17, and there are abdominal variable universal joint anchor points 14 on both sides of the abdominal universal joint anchor point 11 to adapt to the damping provided by the front chest spring damper 10, so as to provide stable rigid support for the robot. The abdominal binding belt 13 is designed with two, which is convenient for distance adjustment of the back spring damper 16 to adapt to the damping provided by the back spring damper 16 according to the movement speed, so as to provide stable rigid support for the robot.

[0024] In embodiment 2, based on the above embodiment scheme, a motion training method of a rigid-flexible coupling external muscle robot is provided, In the outer muscle composed of four pneumatic artificial muscles in parallel structure, the movement control logic of the flexible outer muscle driving system is: the right anterior thoracic pneumatic artificial muscle 2 and the left thoracic pneumatic artificial muscle 4 are synchronously contracted, the left dorsal pneumatic artificial muscle 6 and the right dorsal pneumatic artificial muscle 7 are synchronously relaxed to realize the forward bending of the trunk; The left dorsal pneumatic artificial muscle 6 and the right dorsal pneumatic artificial muscle 7 are synchronously contracted, the right anterior thoracic pneumatic artificial muscle 2 and the left thoracic pneumatic artificial muscle 4 are synchronously relaxed to realize the dorsal bending of the trunk; The right anterior thoracic pneumatic artificial muscle 2 and the right dorsal pneumatic artificial muscle 7 are synchronously contracted, the left thoracic pneumatic artificial muscle 4 is synchronously contracted and the left dorsal pneumatic artificial muscle 6 is synchronously relaxed to realize the right lateral bending of the trunk; The left thoracic pneumatic artificial muscle 4 is synchronously contracted and the left dorsal pneumatic artificial muscle 6 is synchronously contracted, the right anterior thoracic pneumatic artificial muscle 2 and the right dorsal pneumatic artificial muscle 7 are synchronously relaxed to realize the left lateral bending of the trunk; The right anterior thoracic pneumatic artificial muscle 2 and the left dorsal pneumatic artificial muscle 6 are synchronously contracted in cross diagonal to realize the left torsion of the trunk, the left thoracic pneumatic artificial muscle 4 and the right dorsal pneumatic artificial muscle 7 are synchronously contracted in cross diagonal to realize the left torsion of the trunk.

[0025] The spring damper is arranged in the connecting rod of the rigid support system, the damping unit generates damping force based on the movement speed, the faster the movement speed, the greater the damping, which is used to limit the sudden dangerous movement.

[0026] The above has been disclosed as the preferred embodiment of the present application, however, it is not used to limit the present application, any skilled person in the art can make some changes or modifications to the equivalent embodiments within the scope of the technical scheme of the present application, which still belongs to the scope of the technical scheme of the present application.

Claims

1. A rigid-flexible coupled exoskeleton robot, characterized by: It includes a binding device, a flexible external muscle drive system, and a rigid support system; The binding device includes flexible wearable components that are fixed to the user's shoulders, back, and abdomen; The flexible external muscle actuation system includes a pneumatic artificial muscle actuation unit, which is connected to different parts of the flexible wearable component to achieve flexion, dorsiflexion, lateral flexion and torsion of the trunk. The rigid support system is a four-degree-of-freedom parallel passive rigid structure that provides passive damping that varies with motion speed. The rigid support system is located outside the flexible external muscle drive system and is connected to different parts of the flexible wearable component.

2. The rigid-flexible coupled exoskeleton robot according to claim 1, characterized in that: The flexible wearable component includes an abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding strap, a back abdominal binding and fixing strap, a shoulder binding strap, an abdominal binding strap, and a shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding strap; the shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding strap passes around the shoulder and is fixed, the abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding strap passes around the abdomen and is fixed by the back abdominal binding and fixing strap, the shoulder binding strap is located outside the shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding strap and binds the shoulder under the armpit, and the abdominal binding strap is located outside the abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding strap and wraps around it.

3. The rigid-flexible coupled exoskeleton robot according to claim 2, characterized in that: The flexible wearable component is provided with several anchor points. The front and rear parts of the shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding strap are symmetrically arranged with shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle anchor points, and the front and rear parts of the abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding strap are symmetrically arranged with abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle anchor points.

4. The rigid-flexible coupled exoskeleton robot according to claim 3, characterized in that: The pneumatic artificial muscle drive units are the right anterior chest pneumatic artificial muscle, the left anterior chest pneumatic artificial muscle, the left posterior back pneumatic artificial muscle, and the right posterior back pneumatic artificial muscle. The right anterior chest pneumatic artificial muscle, the left anterior chest pneumatic artificial muscle, the left posterior back pneumatic artificial muscle, and the right posterior back pneumatic artificial muscle are each connected to the shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle binding strap and the abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle binding strap through the shoulder pneumatic artificial muscle anchor point and the abdominal pneumatic artificial muscle anchor point, respectively.

5. The rigid-flexible coupled exoskeleton robot according to claim 4, characterized in that: The pneumatic artificial muscle 2 on the right side of the anterior chest and the pneumatic artificial muscle 4 on the left side of the chest are distributed in a "V" shape.

6. The rigid-flexible coupled exoskeleton robot according to claim 4, characterized in that: The pneumatic artificial muscles 6 on the left side of the back and 7 on the right side of the back are distributed in a "V" shape.

7. The rigid-flexible coupled exoskeleton robot according to claim 1, characterized in that: The four-degree-of-freedom parallel passive rigid structure adopts a 4-UPU configuration, and its moving link is a spring damper.

8. The rigid-flexible coupled exoskeleton robot according to claim 2, characterized in that: The flexible wearable component is provided with several anchor points. The front of the two shoulder straps is symmetrically provided with shoulder universal joint anchor points, and the rear of the two shoulder straps is symmetrically provided with back shoulder universal joint anchor points. The front of the abdominal strap is symmetrically provided with abdominal universal joint anchor points, and the back of the abdominal strap is symmetrically provided with back abdominal universal joint anchor points.

9. The rigid-flexible coupled exoskeleton robot according to claim 8, characterized in that: The four-degree-of-freedom parallel passive rigid structure includes symmetrically distributed anterior chest spring dampers on the left and right sides of the anterior chest and symmetrically distributed back spring dampers on the left and right sides of the posterior back. The anterior chest spring dampers are fixed to the shoulder universal joint anchor points and the abdominal universal joint anchor points, respectively. The back spring dampers are fixed to the shoulder universal joint anchor points and the abdominal universal joint anchor points, respectively.

10. A motion training method for a rigid-flexible coupled external muscle robot as described in any one of claims 4-6, characterized in that: The motion control logic of the flexible outer muscle driving system is that the right front chest pneumatic artificial muscle and the left chest pneumatic artificial muscle are contracted synchronously, the left back pneumatic artificial muscle and the right back pneumatic artificial muscle are relaxed synchronously to realize the forward bending of the trunk; The left back pneumatic artificial muscle and the right back pneumatic artificial muscle are contracted synchronously, the right front chest pneumatic artificial muscle and the left chest pneumatic artificial muscle are relaxed synchronously to realize the back bending of the trunk; The right front chest pneumatic artificial muscle and the right back pneumatic artificial muscle are contracted synchronously, the left chest pneumatic artificial muscle is contracted synchronously and the left back pneumatic artificial muscle is relaxed synchronously to realize the right bending of the trunk; The left chest pneumatic artificial muscle is contracted synchronously and the left back pneumatic artificial muscle is contracted synchronously, the right front chest pneumatic artificial muscle and the right back pneumatic artificial muscle are relaxed synchronously to realize the left bending of the trunk; The right front chest pneumatic artificial muscle and the left back pneumatic artificial muscle are cross-diagonal contracted synchronously to realize the left torsion of the trunk, the left chest pneumatic artificial muscle and the right back pneumatic artificial muscle are cross-diagonal contracted synchronously to realize the left torsion of the trunk.

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