面向下肢康复的柔性外骨骼机器人进展研究

Soft exoskeleton robot facing to lower-limb rehabilitation: a narrative review

作为近年来新兴的机器人技术,柔性外骨骼结合了柔性驱动和可穿戴机构,有效解决了传统刚性外骨骼机器人重量大、顺应性差、效率低、穿戴舒适性差的问题,因此尤其适用于运动障碍患者的辅助行走及运动康复,已成为主动康复领域发展的重要方向之一。本综述聚焦下肢柔性外骨骼助行机器人近十年的创新与应用进展,收集整理了60篇目标文献,其中,线驱动50篇,气动驱动7篇,其他驱动3篇,从柔性驱动结构设计、控制方法、康复应用3个方面对相关研究进行剖析讨论。目前,柔性外骨骼主要以线驱动和位置控制研究为主,发展方向为设备轻量化,驱动柔顺化,并结合电生理信号研究和人机交互理论以期降低人体代谢。相关临床试验表明柔性外骨骼有利于患者步态的对称性增强,步速增加,更接近于正常步态。未来,柔性外骨骼机器人有望为步态障碍患者带来更好的主动康复效果和穿戴体验。

As an emerging robotics technology, soft exoskeleton incorporates soft drives and wearable structure, efficiently solves the problems of traditional rigid exoskeleton robots, such as heavy weight, poor compliance, low efficiency and poor wearing comfort. It is suitable for the walking assistance and movement rehabilitation of the patients with motor dysfunctions and has become one of the main developing directions in the field of active rehabilitation. This review focuses on the research development of innovation and application of soft exoskeleton in recent 10 years, collects and sorts out 60 target papers, which include 50 papers about cable drives, 7 papers about pneumatic drives and 3 papers about other drives. This paper analyzes and discusses the related researches from three aspects: soft drive structure design, control method and rehabilitation application. Currently, the soft exoskeleton research is mainly on cable drive and position control. The development direction is the equipment weight lightening and drive compliance, which combines electrophysiological signal research and human-computer interaction theory to reduce human metabolism. The related clinical trials show that the soft exoskeleton is beneficial to increase the symmetry and pace of the patient gait, which is closer to the normal gait. In the future, soft exoskeleton robots are expected to bring better active rehabilitation effects and wearing experience for patients with gait disorders.