Network-based rehabilitation system for improved mobility and tele-rehabilitation

In this brief, a network-based rehabilitation system, which takes advantage of the Internet, wireless communication, and control, is proposed to increase the mobility of a rehabilitation system and to enable tele-rehabilitation. In the proposed system, control algorithms and rehabilitation strategies are distributed at the central location (physiotherapist) and the local site (patient) by communicating over the Internet, and the rehabilitation device is controlled wirelessly by the controller at the local site. In order to deal with possible packet losses over the local wireless network, a modified linear quadratic Gaussian controller and a disturbance observer are applied. The simulation and experimental results with an actual knee rehabilitation system show that the proposed network-based rehabilitation system can generate the desired assistive torque accurately in a network environment.