The paper presents the design optimization of the ASPIRE spherical parallel robot for shoulder rehabilitation following clinical evaluation and clinicians’ feedback. After the development of the robotic structure and the implementation of the control system, ASPIRE was prepared for clinical evaluation. A set of clinical trials was performed on 24 patients with different neurological disorders to obtain the patient and clinician acceptance of the rehabilitation system. During the clinical trials, the behavior of the robotic system was closely monitored and analyzed in order to improve its reliability and overall efficiency. Along with its reliability and efficiency, special attention was given to the safety characteristics during the rehabilitation task.

This paper is focused on the development of a control system, implemented on a parallel robot designed for the lower limb rehabilitation of bedridden stroke survivors. The paper presents the RECOVER robotic system kinematics, further implemented into the control system, which is described in terms of architecture and functionality. Through a battery of experimental tests, achieved in laboratory conditions using eight healthy subjects, the feasibility and functionality of the proposed robotic system have been validated, and the overall performance of the control system has been studied. The range of motion of each targeted joint has been recorded using a commercially available external sensor system. The kinematic parameters, namely the patient’s joints velocities and accelerations have been recorded and compared to the ones obtained using the virtual model, yielding a very small difference between them, which provides a validation of the RECOVER initial design, both in terms of mechanical construction and control system.

The paper gives a new method for the determination of the specific addendum modifications at helical gears. The method is based on the equalization of the relative velocities at the points where the meshing of the teeth begins and ends. The numerical values were obtained for some given gears using MathCAD. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

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