Design and control of soft rehabilitation robots actuated by pneumatic muscles: State of the art

Abstract Robot-assisted rehabilitation has become a new mainstream trend for the treatment of stroke patients with movement disability. Pneumatic muscle (PM) is one of the most promising actuators for rehabilitation robots, due to its inherent compliance and safety features. In this paper, we conduct a systematic review on the soft rehabilitation robots driven by pneumatic muscles. This review discusses up to date mechanical structures and control strategies for PMs-actuated rehabilitation robots. A variety of state-of-the-art soft rehabilitation robots are classified and reviewed according to the actuation configurations. Special attentions are paid to control strategies under different mechanical designs, with advanced control approaches to overcome PM’s highly nonlinear and time-varying behaviors and to enhance the adaptability to different patients. Finally, we analyze and highlight the current research gaps and the future directions in this field, which is potential for providing a reliable guidance on the development of advanced soft rehabilitation robots.