Development Of Robotic Leg For Rehabilitation

Abstract

Stroke will only attack the elderly, it was only a myth. Stroke is a widely emergency disease that contributed as one of the leading cause of death. This dangerous yet a killing disease that can be called as a ‘brain attack’, can happen to anyone, at any time. Muscle control are lost as the effect of this illness thus, individual who suffer may have minor problems such as temporary weakness of an arm or leg. Development of Robotic Leg (DLR) is a device where patient or individual who suffer from this problem may improve their condition by assisting their movement. This assisting robot was designated to focus on lower limb part of human body which is from waist to ankle part. The main component used are two power window motor where these motors are responsible in mimicking the movement of knee and ankle joint. Four position were tested for two weeks where the patient, with the assistance of the robot moved in two degree of freedom that is in 0? and 90?. Result where obtained in graph form where PLX-DAQ software is used to plot the data in real-time by plotting the graph in Microsoft Excel. The collected results shows that DLR can really help in assisting the rehabilitation process as discovered. This is proven when the result in degree value are accurate when being compared with the flexion of both knee and ankle joints. The device not only functioning to assist in rehabilitation process, but also provide comfort to the user or patient as the thigh and shin part is covered by using shin guard with thick sponge. Found that, the comfort of patient must be the highest priority in rehabilitation system. This device is similar to PowerFoot BiOM where the kinematic movement of knees, feet and ankle are imitated by giving various type of movement. This project can give advantages on research if the input parameter needed in the flexion of knee and ankle.