Yukio Kawakami

Basic Research on the Upper Limb Patient Simulator

In the field of rehabilitation, physical therapist plays an important role to resume the social life from disease and physical handicap. However, they can obtain their skills only from their practical experiences. The trainee of the physical therapist can earn the experience only from the clinical practical training, and the opportunity is limited. Therefore, we have been developing the upper limb patient simulator, which reproduce the stiffness of elbow joint to allow trainees to increase the opportunities to obtain the exercise of the physical therapy. The system reproduces the diseases by generating stiffness of the elbow joint, when the trainee is trying to flexion the elbow joint of the patient. In this paper, we tried to reproduce the stiffness of Spasticity, that is often seen the patients of stroke and shoulder paralyzed. In addition, we evaluated reproducibility of the stiffness with out system.

Development of an upper limb patient simulator for physical therapy exercise

Physical therapist plays an important role to help people to regain the social life from disease and physical handicap. However, they can obtain their skills only from their practical experiences. The physical therapist trainee can enrich is experience only from the clinical practical training and this opportunity is limited. Therefore, we have been developing the upper limb patient simulator, which reproduce the stiffness of elbow joint to allow trainees to increase the opportunities to obtain the practical exercise of the physical therapy. The system reproduces the diseases by generating stiffness of the elbow joint, when the trainee tries to flex the elbow joint of the patient. We developed a mechanical part and a control system to realize the patient conditions and the full system has been evaluated by veteran physical therapists.

Study on Control Performance with Consideration of Articulated Manipulators with Pneumatic Cylinders

The biggest problem of using a pneumatic system in an actuator is the difficulty of handling caused by the compressibility of air. This is especially true when taking measures for stick-slip phenomenon that occurs when driving cylinders at low speeds. This paper identifies nonlinear friction which is the main cause of stick-slip phenomenon using the LuGre friction model and examines its effect using a simulation model. This paper also examines and reports the improvement of position control using Simple Adaptive Control System.

Development of new articulated manipulators with compact pneumatic cylinders

We have developed new articulated manipulators with compact pneumatic cylinders and with the high levels of structural flexibilities and safety as a result of adoption of new ideas in the structure. In developing the new articulated manipulators, we have first defined the design concepts and then described the overview of the manipulators which we have actually designed and manufactured. We have carried out experiments with the manufactured articulated manipulators for their positional controllability and stiffness characteristics, the results of which are also reported in this paper. Furthermore, this paper refers to possible applications of the developed new articulated manipulators.

Development of a patient simulator for physical therapy exercise of the upper limb

Physical therapists play an important role to help people to regain social life after a disease or physical handicap. However, they can obtain their skills only from their practical experiences. The physical therapist trainee can enrich is experience only from the clinical practical training and this opportunity is limited. Therefore, we have been developing the upper limb patient simulator, which reproduce the stiffness of the elbow joint to allow trainees to increase the opportunities to obtain the practical exercise of the physical therapy. The system reproduces the diseases by generating stiffness of the elbow joint when the trainee tries to flex the simulated patients arm elbow joint. We developed a mechanical part and a control system to realize the patient conditions and the full system has been evaluated by veteran physical therapists.