Workspace and Singularities of Parallel Robots for

rehabilitation therapy. Applications

Parallel Robots Semestrial Project

Biro Oana-Maria & Bîrjac Radu-Alexandru
1543/1
Contents
I. Introduction
II. Workspace and Singularities
III. Parallel Robots for Rehabilitation Therapy
IV. Robot 1
V. Parallel Robot for lower limb rehabilitation
VI. Resources
I. Introduction
Rehabilitation therapy is a part of the medical field that deals with aiding
patients recover from illnesses, injuries, cardiac events, strokes or other medical
issues. Its main goal is to help patients regain functional abilities and thus
independence, things that were lost due to these issues. A subfield of
rehabilitation therapy is physiotherapy which is used to resolve the patient’s
movement dysfunctions, restore movement, strength and ability in the affected
limb while also easing acute or chronic pain.

Recently, through technological advancement, there emerged a new

multidisciplinary field of study: rehabilitation robotics. It combines medicine
and technology to provide automated aids in helping patients regain their
sensorimotor abilities. The main technical fields that are involved in this
research are biomedical engineering and human-robot interaction. The main
aims of these studies are to create devices that can be easily used by clinicians
and patients, to augment existing therapies and increase their efficiency and
ultimately increase the patients’ ability to perform mundane tasks with ease.

Figure 1- Rehabilitation robot used in regaining arm mobility

While we can agree that there is a need for such rehabilitation robots, the truth
is that the robotics market is driven by industrial application rather than medical
ones, although bio-engineering and bio-robotics have seen an increase in recent
years. In light of that, most robots used for physical therapy are actually
industrial robots re-programmed to perform tasks that may aid the injured
individual into a faster recovery. For example, a robot can perform a certain
exercise routine guiding the injured limb and also gather data about the
performance and send it to be analysed by the doctors.

II. Workspace and Singularities

1. Workspace
The workspace of a robot is defined as a set of points in space that the robot can
reach with its end effector. It varies for each robot as it as a characteristic that
depends on its construction. When deciding for the best suited robot for a
certain task, one must take into consideration the robot’s workspace.

Figure 2- the workspace of a serial robot (model unknown)

 Figure 3- The workspace of a parallel robot (model unknown)

2. Singularities
A robot singularity is a configuration in which the robot’s end effector becomes
stuck in certain directions. When we want to move a robot in a Cartesian space,
we only specify the desired end effector position and the robot must calculate
all the joint positions and velocities to get there. Singularities arise when the
mathematical equation that needs to be solved for a certain end effector position
cannot be solved (for example, because of division by 0). When it reaches a
singularity, the robot loses one or more degrees of freedom.

Parallel robots have a more complex structure in terms of kinematics, dynamics,

control and planning than serial manipulators. Because of this, parallel robots
singularities are even harder to overcome.

A parallel robot is a closed-loop mechanism in which a moving platform is

connected to the base by at least two serial kinematic chains. In general, the
instantaneous relationship between the vectors of mobile platform velocity (v)
and the active joint velocity (q*) can be written as

Av=Bq*
Where A and B are the Jacobian matrices of the closed-loop mechanism. There
can be different types of singularities depending on whether A, B, or both are
singular. [5]

V. Parallel Robot for lower limb rehabilitation [6]

Stroke is a leading cause of chronic disability, with 100 000 patients having
their first stroke annually in the UK. This disability translates in inability to
perform certain movements. The improvement of motor recovery and motor
plasticity of a patient along specific patterns is the aim of rehabilitation
exercises. With technological advance, the use of robots in rehabilitation
therapy has proved to accelerate the treatment and recovery of the disabled, thus
using emerging robotic technology in a traditional rehabilitation therapy session
would provide higher quality treatment at a lower cost and effort.

Different lower limb rehabilitation assisting robots have been developed,

ranging from complex computerised stations with VR simulation to simple
structures. These systems can be categorised in five different groups: treadmill
gait trainers; footplate-based gait trainers; over-ground gait trainers; stationary
gait trainers and ankle rehabilitation systems.

Because of its simple structure and high flexibility, we can use a 6 DoF parallel
robot as a method for lower limb rehabilitation. In the study I am citing, the
team has investigated the capability of a 6 DoF parallel robot (similar to a
Stewart platform) to perform various lower limb rehabilitation exercises. In
order to do this, they have analysed the foot trajectories of 20 healthy
participants in a gait lab using 12 Vicon cameras. They then used this data to
evaluate the robot’s capability during four rehabilitation exercises using a
Kinect camera as a depth motion sensor.

Kinematic analysis
First they investigated the kinematics and dynamics of the parallel robot and
they designed and simulated the CAD model of the robot. In order to calculate
the length of actuators with respect to the reference foot trajectories, the inverse
kinematic of the 6 DoF parallel robot has been investigated. Considering a
single leg, it is composed of 2 links connected to each other by a cylindrical
joint and connected to the top and base by two universal joints. The same
kinematical behaviour can be obtained with a prismatic joint (substituting the
cylindrical joint) and a spherical joint (substituting the top universal joint). Thus
we can observe that the parallel robot used for this application is kinematically
equivalent to a Stewart platform.

In order to find the initial position of the joints connected to the moving
platform and the fixed base, the team has designed the 3D CAD model of the
robot. They assigned the coordinate systems O = (X, Y, Z) to the centre of the
base platform and o = (x, y, z) to the centre of the top platform, as shown in
figure 4.

Figure 4 – the 3D CAD model of the robot

The following equation shows the homogenous transformation matrix

representing the transformation of the top connecting point to the corresponding
base points with respect to standard Euler angles. The moving frame has been
rotated around the fixed Z-, y-, and z- axes, respectively.
Where t = [Px, Py, Pz]T and R = (α,β,γ) represent the translation and rotation of
the top with respect to the base. α and β represent the approach vector of the
moving platform and γ is the roll angle about it. In order to calculate the
positions of the top joints, the following equation has been used:

Where Pi = [ XTi, YTi, ZTi] represents the position of the top joints with respect to
the base and pi = [xTi, yTi, zTi] represents the position of the top joints with
respect to the end effector’s coordinate reference and i represents the number of
actuators. The lengths of the actuators are calculated using the following
equations:

Where (Xbi, Ybi, Zbi) shows the position of the i-th connection point to the base.

Dynamics Analysis
The actuator forces during different motions have been calculated based on the
inverse dynamic and Newton-Euler formulation. The unit vector along the
actuator was calculated by the following equation:

The profile of force applied by the foot during different exercises was measured
by the force plate in the gait lab and was used as the external force in
calculating the actuator force. By calculating the magnitude of actuator forces
(F = [F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6]T) the resultant force (R) and momentum (M) for the
system have been calculated through the following equations:
Where bi is the i-th connection point at the base. The output force has been
related to the input forces by the following equation:

Where H is a 6 x 6 transformation matrix which describes the relation between

the input forces and the output forces.

When H is singular, an extra load will be created on the platform that cannot be
supported by the actuator forces. The singularities were identified while the
value of determination of the matrix H was 0. The static singularity will appear
when:

Robot analysis
The prototype for this robot uses six servo actuators with a stroke size of 150
mm connected to the top and base by 12 universal joints.

Gait analysis
Twenty healthy people participated in this study: 10 males with the average age
of 35.23 ± 3.02 years, height of 175.2 ± 4.34 cm and weight of 82.764 ± 4.89 kg
and 10 females with an average age of 33.75 ± 2.34 years, height of 168.23 ±
3.43 cm and weight of 59.453 ± 5.563 kg. They were all selected based on the
following criteria: able bodied with no lower limb disabilities; weight less than
100 kg; ability to perform functional movements like stair climbing and normal
walking.
They were all asked to perform 4 exercises barefoot while their foot trajectory
was recorded by 12 Vicon cameras and the forces they exhibited were analysed
by two force plates. The exercises were: hip flexion/extension; ankle
dorsiflexion/plantar flexion; stair climbing and marching. Each participant had
to perform the exercise 6 times with each leg. Figure 5 exemplifies the
exercises.

Figure 5- rehabilitation exercises performed by healthy subjects: (a)- hip flexion/extension; (b)- ankle
dorsiflexion/plantar flexion; (c)- stair climbing; (d)- marching

After the foot trajectories were determined by a Matlab program, the physical
model movement was analysed in comparison with the results obtained by
linking the CAD model to the Matlab program. The team has done this using
two Kinect cameras that followed the movement of a skeleton model of a lower
limb that was attached to the platform. For the Kinect to be able to analyse the
movements, blue, red and green markers were placed on anatomical landmarks
on the model as is shown in figure 6.
 Figure 6 – skeleton model

Workspace of the Robot

The workspace of the robot was simulated in Matlab based on the developed
numerical method, the structural limitations of the robot and the Cartesian and
Polar algorithms. The robot is able to move 240 mm along the x- and y- axes
and 140 mm along the positive z- axis. All foot trajectories during the different
exercises were simulated in Matlab. Because the range of movement for all
exercises except the ankle one was out of the workspace of the robot, the
trajectories of motion have been scaled down 3 times.

Figure 7- Matlab Calculated Workspace

The foot trajectories and the robot trajectories recorded were compared and the
maximum and minimum position errors were measured to be 34.15 mm and
10.75 mm.
 Figure 8- Trajectory comparison (a)- ankle exercise; (b)- hip exercise; (c)- marching; (d)- stair climbing

Conclusion
Because the errors are small and the robot followed all the trajectories without
encountering any singularity points, the conclusion of this study is that there is a
real capability exhibited by this robot to perform various lower limb
rehabilitation exercises for patients with lower limb disabilities.
VI. Resources
1. https://www.britannica.com/technology/rehabilitation-robot
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_therapy
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_robotics
4. Napper, S. A., & Seaman, R. L. (1989). Applications of robots in
rehabilitation. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 5(3), 227–239. 
5. Guilin Yang, I-Ming Chen, Wei Lin, and Jorge Angeles, Singularity
Analysis of Three-Legged Parallel Robots Based on Passive-Joint
Velocities, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ROBOTICS AND
AUTOMATION, VOL. 17, NO. 4, AUGUST 2001
6. Alireza Rastegarpanah, Mozafar Saadat, Alberto Borboni, Parallel Robot
for Lower Limb Rehabilitation Exercises, Applied Bionics and
Biomechanics, volume 2016, article ID 8584735