Kinematics, Dynamics and Control for Rehabilitation Robotics and Prostheses

Dear Colleagues,

The development of devices for assistance in physical rehabilitation and prostheses to replace any lost body member is an area where robotic technology has found promising applications that can impact a person’s life. Several studies have demonstrated the benefits of the use of robotic devices in rehabilitation processes, and many people have benefited from prostheses replacing a lost member and improving their quality of life. However, despite technological advances in actuating and sensing technologies, in the development of new materials, and in artificial intelligence applications, there are still many challenges in the design, analysis, control, prototyping, and testing of robotic rehabilitation devices and prostheses for diverse parts of the human body. The kinematics and dynamics of prostheses and rehabilitation robots are related to biomechanics studies, playing an important role in the development of these kinds of devices. Kinematic analysis deals with the relation between the input and output movement variables, ranges of motion, velocities, and accelerations of actuators and final effectors. Dynamics is described by differential equations, which relate forces or torques in the actuators with output movements of prostheses or robotic devices. These relationships are used to synthesize control algorithms to guarantee the correct performance of autonomous systems. As can be observed, kinematics, dynamics, and control are key issues in designing, analyzing, and implementing prostheses and robotic devices for rehabilitation assistance. Moreover, they intrinsically include sensors, actuators, signal processing, modeling, simulation, and prototyping.

This Special Issue aims to cover all of the above-mentioned aspects, highlighting novel or recent mathematical and/or computational methods for developing kinematic or dynamic models, simulating virtual prototypes, and designing and implementing control systems for robotic prostheses and rehabilitation devices.

Dr. Manuel Arias-Montiel
Guest Editor

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