Design and Control of an Electromechanical Human–Robotic Manipulator’s Interface for Upper-Limb Rehabilitation

Stroke affects over 100 million people worldwide, and over two-thirds of survivors experience lasting upper-limb impairments, which significantly impact their quality of life. The global shortage of rehabilitation providers, which cannot attend to all patients who need it, creates an urgent, not yet answered, need for reliable and accessible rehabilitation innovations. Robotic rehabilitation has been emerging as an effective alternative to traditional physical therapy. This paper presents the development and evaluation of 2 degree-of-freedom exoskeleton, coupled to a collaborative robotic manipulator, which performs upperlimb rehabilitation. The system targets elbow flexion/extension and forearm pronation/supination, using two direct current brushless actuators. To accommodate a wide range of users, the mechanical design is modular and adjustable, allowing the rehabilitation of a broad range of arm lengths, while mechanical barriers prevent unsafe joint motions. Furthermore, limit switches ensure the movements are performed within safe values and an emergency button is also available for emergency stop. Safety assessment confirmed the actuators’ performance and the integrity of the physical barriers. Three different rehabilitation modes were implemented: passive assist, active assist and active resist. Passive assistance tests achieved consistent trajectory tracking with a root mean square error of 4.85º for pronation/supination and 0.87º for elbow flexion/extension, while maintaining smooth motion profiles with spectral arc length values of -1.603 and -1.56, respectively. Active resistance generated stable bidirectional torque across the full range of motion, reaching up to 1 Nm for forearm pronation/supination and 7 Nm for elbow flexion/extension. The adaptive active assistance strategy modified the assistance torque in real time according to the detected user performance. These findings establish a foundation for future clinical evaluation and real-world applications, with the system’s modular design and multiple therapy modes showing potential to support diverse rehabilitation needs.