Upper and Lower Limbs Rehabilitation: DARTAGNAN, An Alternative Solution to Exoskeletal Robots

This article deals with a new robot for rehabilitation, DARTAGNAN, able to work in active or passive modes, on upper and lower human limbs. The presented robot has an hybrid serial/parallel structure with 6 degree of freedoms and a self-balanced mechanical structure. Although it is not an exoskeleton, DARTAGNAN behaves as such thanks to the customized software and to specific end-effectors, which can be appropriately connected to the forearm or lower leg. Thanks to the force/torque sensor the robot is able to treat the patient limb allowing him/her to (i) feel no effort in passive following mode, (ii) feel a specific effort in passive resistive mode or (iii) to actuate directly the limb in case of force deficit or spasticity for the active mode, while performing the exercise. Moreover, one of features of the robot is the possibility to directly calculate the limbs anthropometric parameters without the need of manual measurements to be set up before each treatment.