Research Status on Ankle Rehabilitation Robot

Background: Ankle is an important bearing joint in the human body. Unreasonable exercise patterns and exercise intensity can cause ankle injuries. This will seriously affect patients’ daily life. With the increase in the number of patients, the labor intensity of doctors is increasing. Ankle rehabilitation robot can help doctors free themselves from repetitive tasks, which is, of more practical value. Objective: To give a general summary of recent ankle rehabilitation robot and introduce the respective characteristics and development including structure type, drive type and rehabilitation training mode. Methods: This paper investigates various representative studies related to the ankle rehabilitation robot. The structure type, drive type, rehabilitation training mode and applications situation of these ankle rehabilitation robot are discussed. Results: The characteristics of different types of ankle rehabilitation robots are analyzed. This paper analyzes the main problems in its development. The solutions to the issues and the current and future research on ankle rehabilitation robot are discussed. Conclusion: The ankle rehabilitation robots are classified into motor drive type, pneumatic artificial muscle and pneumatic cylinder drive type and others. Further improvements are needed in the aspects of mechanical design, safety, virtual reality, brain-computer interface, control strategies and algorithm of bio-syncretic mechanism system of ankle rehabilitation robot. More related patents about ankle rehabilitation robot need to be developed.