L2M-NSERC - Development of a Wearable Distributed Mechatronic System: Applications in Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation of the Upper Limb

全世界有数百万人患有肌肉骨骼疾病或损伤。人们正在开发可穿戴机器人设备，通过允许患者在家中进行锻炼和日常生活活动来改善肌肉骨骼康复。然而，可穿戴机器人设备还远远不够理想，因为它们体积大、重量重。因此，迫切需要创造新技术来减少体积重量问题。这项工作正在探索的方法是将硬件组件的重量分布在不同的关节和肌肉上，而不是将它们全部放在身体的一个部位。这就产生了一个新的挑战：如何在几个模块（包括软件和硬件）之间分配任务，这些模块一起支持上肢的运动？作为解决方案，任务将被分配到六种类型的模块中，这些模块包括传感器和单元，用于收集和处理来自上肢几个肌肉和关节的数据，机器学习算法用于定义运动是否存在异常，以及与执行器配对的决策单元，这些执行器将采取正确上肢运动所需的最佳行动。这项工作的重点将是开发帮助肩部和手臂受伤的人的模块。当病人被规定进行康复运动时，他们倾向于使用替代运动（称为代偿运动），如前倾或躯干旋转，以达到目标。因此，第一个目标是设计一个模块来自动检测和分类补偿运动。第二个目标是设计一个模块，以便在检测到代偿运动时向患者提供反馈。为此，将开发一种提供力（称为力反馈）以支持上肢关节和肌肉的策略。第三个目标是将所有模块整合到一件物理服装中，以评估所提出的分布式可穿戴机电设备的可行性。该项目的成果将是一系列分布在上肢的模块，从而减少体积重量问题。考虑到上肢重量分布的改善，建议的设计有可能在家庭环境中使用。

Millions of people worldwide suffer from musculoskeletal disorders or injuries. Wearable robotic devices are being developed to improve musculoskeletal rehabilitation by allowing the patient to perform exercises and activities of daily living at home. However, wearable robotic devices are still far from ideal, as they are bulky and heavy. Hence, there is a strong need to create new technologies to reduce the bulk weight problem. The approach being explored in this work is to distribute the weight of the hardware components on different joints and muscles, instead of locating all of them on one part of the body. This results in a new challenge: how to distribute the tasks among several modules (both software and hardware) that together, will support the motion of the upper limb? As a solution, tasks will be distributed over six types of modules that consist of sensors and units for collecting and processing the data from several muscles and joints of the upper limb, machine learning algorithms to define if anomaly in the movements exists, and decision units paired with actuators that will take the best actions required for the correct upper body movement. The focus of this work will be to develop the modules for assisting people with shoulder and arm injury. When a patient is prescribed rehabilitative exercises, they tend to use alternative motions (known as compensatory motions), such as forward leaning or torso rotation, to reach a target. Thus, the first objective is to design a module to automatically detect and classify compensatory motions. The second objective is to design a module to provide feedback to the patient if the compensatory motion is detected. To this end, a strategy to provide force (known as force feedback) for supporting the joints and muscles of the upper limb will be developed. The third objective focuses on bringing all of the modules together into a physical garment to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed distributed wearable mechatronic device. The outcome of the project will be a series of modules distributed throughout the upper limb, thereby reducing the bulk weight problem. Considering the improvement in the weight distribution over the upper limb, the proposed design has the potential to be used in a home setting.