Motion Simulation of a Hybrid Parallel Robot for Ankle Rehabilitation

This paper addresses the path planning of a hybrid parallel robot for ankle rehabilitation. The robot contains 3-DOF parallel mechanism that is attached on top of the 6-DOF hexapod. The 6-UPU-3-UPR parallel robot is developed to simulate ankle motions for the rehabilitation of post-stroke patients with an affected ankle. The inverse kinematic of hybrid parallel robot is developed in order to track the end-effector’s position through Matlab software. The calculated stroke size of each actuator is imported to apply the forward kinematic for determining the position of end-effector. The experimental and simulation values of the hexapod are compared with those of the hybrid structure through a number of exercise motion paths. The results reveal that, in general, the simulation values follow well the experimental values, although with different degrees of variation for each of the structures considered.