Abstract:
Close interaction can be observed between an exoskeleton robot and its wearer. Therefore, appropriate physical human-robot interaction (pHRI) should be considered
when designing an exoskeleton robot to provide safe and comfortable motion assistance. Different features have been used in recent studies to enhance the pHRI in upperlimb
exoskeleton robots. However, less attention has been given to integrating kinematic redundancy into upper-limb exoskeleton robots to improve the pHRI. In this context,
this paper proposes a six-degrees-of-freedom (DoF) upperlimb exoskeleton robot (6-REXOS) for the motion assistance of physically weak individuals. The 6-REXOS uses a
kinematically different structure to that of the human lower arm, where the exoskeleton robot is worn. The 6-REXOS has four active DoFs to generate the motion of the human
lower arm. Furthermore, two flexible bellow couplings are attached to the wrist and elbow joints to generate two passive DoFs. These couplings not only allow translational
motion in wrist and elbow joints but also a redundancy in the robot. Furthermore, the compliance of the flexible coupling contributes to avoiding misalignments between
human and robot joint axes. The redundancy in the 6- REXOS is verified based on manipulability index, minimum singular value, condition number and manipulability
ellipsoids. The 6-REXOS and a four-DoF exoskeleton robot are compared to verify the manipulation advantage due to the redundancy. The four-DoF exoskeleton robot is
designed by excluding the two passive DoFs of the 6- REXOS. In addition, a kinematic model is proposed for the human lower arm to validate the performance of the 6-
REXOS. Kinematic analysis and simulations are carried out to validate the 6-REXOS and human-lower-arm model.
