H-Man : refinement of a planar, 2DOF robotic manipulandum for use in clinical settings and at home

Abstract

Stroke patients often suffer from some sort of impairment in some parts of their bodies. Many of the patients then undergo rehabilitation to improve their impaired situation. Research in robot-assisted therapy to improve and enhance the recovery of stroke patients have been on-going and is on the rise. H-Man, a 2D planar manipulandum is one of the robot-assisted therapy which is currently used as a clinical trial in Singapore Tan Tock Seng Hospital. It was made to assist stroke patients with upper limb disabilities. H-Man is an economical, light-weight and control-friendly robotic rehabilitation device which targets to enhance affordability and accessibility of rehabilitation therapy. Currently, H-Man is in its fully developed stage. The current H-Man comes in only one handle, per H-Man which only allows one patient or one hand to undergo rehabilitation at once. This report has investigated and demonstrated that bi-manual implementation of H-Man through haptics via a virtual spring maybe implemented in the near future. This report presents the discussion and evaluation of the bi-manual set-up of the H-man.