# Advancing Home Rehabilitation: The PlanAID Robot’s Approach to Upper-Body Exercise Through Impedance Control

## TL;DR

The PlanAID robot is a low-cost rehabilitation device that safely supports upper-body exercises through impedance control, showing promise for home-based therapy.

## Contribution

A low-cost, impedance-controlled rehabilitation robot for upper-body exercises is developed and evaluated.

## Key findings

- The PlanAID robot achieves performance comparable to established devices like the MIT-Manus in terms of force and inertia.
- The system's stability limits restrict maximum stiffness to 1100 N/m, but this is sufficient for practical rehabilitation tasks.
- Initial user feedback from healthy subjects was collected to assess usability and effectiveness.

## Abstract

Rehabilitation robots are a leading solution towards bridging the gap between the growing number of rehabilitation patients requiring therapy and the limited availability of healthcare professionals. However, existing robotic systems are often bulky and expensive, limiting their ability to provide widespread, repetitive, and intensive exercises. This paper presents the development of an impedance-based control strategy designed to provide safe and compliant upper-body passive and active exercises on the low-cost PlanAID robot, which is built using consumer-grade components. The system’s functionalities are evaluated using a high-precision force sensor. Results show that the PlanAID exhibits performance comparable to seminal devices such as the MIT-Manus, achieving a similar applicable reaction force target of 28 N and reflected inertia of 1.1 kg. Although the overall performance is comparable, the low-cost PlanAID prototype suffers from reduced coupled stability margins, limiting the maximum achievable virtual spring constant to 1100 N/m. Despite this limitation, the stiffness values required in practical applications remain low, suggesting that the PlanAID could potentially be a viable candidate for real-world rehabilitation. Initial user feedback was obtained through a preliminary qualitative trial involving healthy subjects.