Tongyang Sun

Mechanism design and control strategies of an ankle robot for rehabilitation training

It has become a trend that ankle rehabilitation robots replace traditional therapist in rehabilitation field. Many ankle rehabilitation robots have been proposed for rehabilitation training by researchers. However, most of current researches are only focusing on providing the passive training. They not only ignore the active force training for patient, but also neglect the relationship between passive training and neurological rehabilitation. In this paper, an ankle robot combining active training and passive training, subjective awareness and objective training is proposed. The ankle physiological model and mechanism of ankle rehabilitation robot are described. The control strategies of advanced training modes, passive training and active training, subjective awareness and objective training are introduced. Finally, experiments are established to testify the mechanical performance of ankle robot. Furthermore, experiment of passive training and active training is held among healthy people and the result show a good stability of the control system.

Inertial Sensor-Based Motion Analysis of Lower Limbs for Rehabilitation Treatments

The hemiplegic rehabilitation state diagnosing performed by therapists can be biased due to their subjective experience, which may deteriorate the rehabilitation effect. In order to improve this situation, a quantitative evaluation is proposed. Though many motion analysis systems are available, they are too complicated for practical application by therapists. In this paper, a method for detecting the motion of human lower limbs including all degrees of freedom (DOFs) via the inertial sensors is proposed, which permits analyzing the patients motion ability. This method is applicable to arbitrary walking directions and tracks of persons under study, and its results are unbiased, as compared to therapist qualitative estimations. Using the simplified mathematical model of a human body, the rotation angles for each lower limb joint are calculated from the input signals acquired by the inertial sensors. Finally, the rotation angle versus joint displacement curves are constructed, and the estimated values of joint motion angle and motion ability are obtained. The experimental verification of the proposed motion detection and analysis method was performed, which proved that it can efficiently detect the differences between motion behaviors of disabled and healthy persons and provide a reliable quantitative evaluation of the rehabilitation state.The hemiplegic rehabilitation state diagnosing performed by therapists can be biased due to their subjective experience, which may deteriorate the rehabilitation effect. In order to improve this situation, a quantitative evaluation is proposed. Though many motion analysis systems are available, they are too complicated for practical application by therapists. In this paper, a method for detecting the motion of human lower limbs including all degrees of freedom (DOFs) via the inertial sensors is proposed, which permits analyzing the patients motion ability. This method is applicable to arbitrary walking directions and tracks of persons under study, and its results are unbiased, as compared to therapist qualitative estimations. Using the simplified mathematical model of a human body, the rotation angles for each lower limb joint are calculated from the input signals acquired by the inertial sensors. Finally, the rotation angle versus joint displacement curves are constructed, and the estimated values of joint motion angle and motion ability are obtained. The experimental verification of the proposed motion detection and analysis method was performed, which proved that it can efficiently detect the differences between motion behaviors of disabled and healthy persons and provide a reliable quantitative evaluation of the rehabilitation state.

Development of a novel paediatric surgical assist robot for tissue manipulation in a narrow workspace

Paediatric congenital esophageal atresia surgery typically requires delicate and dexterous operations in a narrow and confined workspace. This study aims to develop a novel robot assisted surgical system to address these challenges.,The proposed surgical robot consists of two symmetrical slave arms with nine degree of freedoms each. Each slave arm uses a rigid-dexterous configuration and consists of a coarse positioning manipulator and a distal fine operation manipulator. A small Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm (SCARA) mechanism was designed to form the main component of the coarse positioning unit, ensuring to endure large forces along the vertical direction and meet the operational demands. The fine positioning manipulator applied the novel design using flexible shafts and universal joints to achieve delicate operations while possessing a high rigidity. The corresponding kinematics has been derived and then was validated by a co-simulation that was performed based on the combined use of Adams and MATLAB with considering the real robot mass information. Experimental evaluations for the tip positioning accuracy and the ring transfer tasks have been performed.,The simulation was performed to verify the correctness of the derived inverse kinematics and demonstrated the robot’s flexibility. The experimental results illustrated that the end-effector can achieve a positioning accuracy within 1.5 mm in a confined 30 × 30 × 30 mm workspace. The ring transfer task demonstrated that the surgical robot is capable of providing a solution for dexterous tissue intervention in a narrow workspace for paediatric surgery.,A novel and compact surgical assist robot is developed to support delicate operations by using the dexterous slave arm. The slave arm consists of a SCARA mechanism to avoid experiencing overload in the vertical direction and a tool manipulator driven by flexible shafts and universal joints to provide high dexterity for operating in a narrow workspace.

Development of lower limb motion detection based on LPMS

Up to now, with the increasing of the elderly population, more and more patients are suffering from hemiplegia. It leads to a great need for hemiplegic rehabilitation. In traditional rehabilitation, each patient must be treated by therapist, one by one. However, since the individual differences of therapists, no effectiveness rehabilitation is guaranteed. And the rehabilitation status of patient is still diagnosed by therapists with their subjective experience. This would cause the inhomogeneity on rehabilitation evaluation and sometimes negative influence on the rehabilitation effect. To solve these problems, many research groups proposed rehabilitation evaluation systems to assess the status of the hemiplegic patients quantitatively. Rehabilitation motion detection is the basis of the evaluation system, and it requires the participation of therapist. However, many motion detection methods do not meet the detection requirements, such as mechanical tracking and optical sensor, etc. In this article we present a method to detect lower limb motion of hemiplegic patients based on inertial sensor technology. LPMS, a high performance, easy wearable, portable and large measurement range sensor, is selected as the motion sensor. We obtain the gesture quaternion of lower limb through LPMS, and then use the algorithm to convert quaternion to matrix and Euler angle. Combining with the simplified lower limb motion model, we compute the rotation angle of joint by processing the rotation quaternion in Matlab. Finally, the curve of rotation angle of knee is established. The method detecting the motion of lower limb can be integrated into the rehabilitation robot control system, realizing intelligent detection and evaluation. Thus, the rehabilitation robots could be expected adjusting training parameters based on patient status automatically, expected to have significant impacts in medical rehabilitation robot field.

Development of an arm robot with human-like motor nerve model for neurological examination training

Aims: To explore the antioxidant activity of chitosan oligosaccharides (COST) in a D-galactose-induced aged mouse model. Methods: COST was orally administered over a period of one month to C57BL/6J mice that had been previously treated with D-galactose for six weeks. The effects of COST on lipid peroxidation and antioxidant enzymatic activities were analyzed in multiple organs (liver, heart, and kidney). Results: COST significantly inhibited the formation of MDA and enhanced the serum and tissue activities of SOD, CAT, and GSH-Px in a dose-dependent manner. Conclusions: COST has potent antioxidant activity and may be a promising dietary supplement to slow aging and prevent age-related diseases in humans. Acknowledgements: This project was supported by The Industry-University-Research Collaborative Innovation Major Projects of The Guangzhou Science and Technology Innovation Commission, China (No. 201604020164), and The Science and Technology Planning Project of Guangdong, China (No. 2013B021100018).

Study on synthesis and properties of nanoparticles loaded with amaryllidaceous alkaloids

Abstract Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common disease among the elderly people and a major social and medical problem. Amaryllidaceous alkaloids, acting as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, represent a potential treatment of AD. However, they also have some deficiencies, such as extensive toxicity and widespread side effects. In order to improve the bioavailability and reduce the toxic and side effects, brain targeting of amaryllidaceous alkaloids was enhanced by considering low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptors of blood-brain barrier (BBB) endothelial cells as therapeutic targets. Amaryllidaceous alkaloids were highly selectively and quantitatively riveted to the surface of low density lipoproteins by using a new method - mild click chemistry. The structure of products has been characterized by NMR, FT-IR, and other methods. In addition, drug loading rate, encapsulation rate, and drug release by the nanoparticles were determined to assess the quality of the nanoparticles.

Development of a Novel Multi-Functional Rehabilitation Robot

With the development of aging society, the number of hemiplegia patients grows rapidly and over 75% of survivors suffering hemiplegia need rehabilitation training. Traditional training methods need one or more physical therapists to server one patient at the same time. In order to reduce the workload of the physical therapist and to improve patient rehabilitation performance, this paper presents a novel multi-functional rehabilitation robot, which can assist hemiplegic patient for stand up/squatting training, Gravity shifting training and Walking training. The robot system consists of two Support manipulator, Screw lift mechanism, Weight balance device and a Treadmill. Different from the existing rehabilitation robot, the design philosophy of the multi-functional support robot is to mimic hand movement of physical therapist. It is flexible to fit in patients with individual differences. The design of the detailed mechanical components is illustrated. The proposed robot system can be used in multi-function exercise for hemiplegic patient. Introduction China in the 21st century will be fully into the aging society, according to the record of Chinese National Bureau of Statistics, As of 2015the population over 60 years old Chinas elderly population has reached 220 million, the level of aging is 15%. And from 2030 to 2050, the aging rate will show a linear increase in the situation. It is expected that in 2050, the total number of elderly people in China will reach 450 million, accounting for more than 30% of the total population [1]. As the aging population is growing, the aging society caused the disease situation more and more severe. Stroke is a high incidence of disease among elderly people. About 75% of survivors after stroke 392 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Copyright

Development of a FES System for Hemiplegic Rehabilitation Based on Patient Healthy Limb's EMG Signal

This paper presents a functional electrical stimulation system to mimic the EMG characterization of patient healthy limb to exercise his/her affected limb. Firstly, the existing problems of functional electrical stimulation system are analyzed. Generally, the existing electrical stimulation systems suffer from fixed waveform, large volume and low portability, which make the effect of treatment difficult to improve. Secondly, the hardware platform of the proposed system is constructed, such as EMG acquisition module, FES module, to realize the acquisition of EMG signal and the generation of electrical stimulation pulse. The characterization of the healthy limb is extracted, and then it is used to exercise the affected limb via FES stimulus. Finally, the wireless communication is build, to realize the wireless communication between modules. The system has the advantage of small volume and high portable. The system can effectively collect EMG signals and generate FES pulses. Introduction Functional electrical stimulation (FES) plays an important role in rehabilitation of stroke patients as an important means of rehabilitation training for stroke patients[1]. Currently, the stimulus pulses used by FES are still specific synthetic pulses, such as single-phase, biphasic rectangular wave, triangular wave, sine wave, etc. These synthetic pulses do not accurately simulate the potential transfer of human muscle movement, affecting the treatment to further improve[2]. EMG signal is a more ideal source of stimulation to produce biological signals[3]. It is a good choice to use the normal EMG signal of the sound side as the stimulation source of the functional electrical stimulation ofaffectedside. Because of the large volume and the cable connection, the existing electric stimulation system has the disadvantages of inconvenient, poor comfort and difficult 398 This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Copyright

Lower limb motion analysis based on inertial sensor

Up to now, with the increasing of the elderly population, more and more patients are suffering from hemiplegia. The need for hemiplegic rehabilitation is increasing quickly. As traditional rehabilitation, each patient must be treated by therapist, one by one. However, because of the different levels of therapists, the rehabilitation cannot be performed as the as the same. Normally, the rehabilitation status diagnosing is still be performed by therapists with the subjective experience. It caused the inhomogeneity on rehabilitation evaluation. It also sometimes causes negative influence on the rehabilitation effect. To solve these problems, many researches focusing on assessing the status of the hemiplegic patients quantitatively are proposed rehabilitation evaluation systems. Rehabilitation motion detection is the basis of the evaluation system, and it requires the participation of therapist. In this paper, a method is presented to detect lower limb motion of hemiplegic patients based on inertial sensor technology. The gesture quaternion of lower limb can be obtained through LPMS. With the matrix and Euler angle changing algorithm, combining with the simplified lower limb motion model, the rotation angle of joint can be computed. Finally, the curve of rotation angle of knee is established.

Development of an ankle robot MKA-III for rehabilitation training

With the developments of robotics, it has become a fashion trend that ankle rehabilitation robots assist traditional training in rehabilitation field. In this thesis, a novel ankle robot combing with 3 degrees of freedom, combining passive-active training, subjective awareness and objective training was proposed. Prior to robot developments, the requirement of ankle robot was analyzed based on the ankle structure and rehabilitation. In order to acquire the range of ankle motion, an experiment was established to detect the physiological data. Based on traditional rehabilitation therapy, a novel robot-assist rehabilitation therapy combing subjective awareness and objective training was proposed. Based on the requirements analysis, a novel mechanism structure of cross-circle was proposed to robot movement around ankle center. The mechanical structure includes four parts, adduction/abduction parts, dorsiflexion/plantar flexion parts, inversion/eversion parts and sensing unit. Each part of ankle rehabilitation robot was introduced in detail. By means of stress analysis and strength check, the feasibility of the structure was verified. After the mechanism design, the hardware configuration of control system was built up. Finally, the core control strategy, position control and force control were proposed.