ROBOT ARM SYSTEM FOR REHABILITATION IN HEMIPLEGIC PATIENT

Abstract

This research presents the design and fabrication of a mechanical arm for rehabilitation of hemiplegic patients where it can be controlled through an application on Android-based mobile devices. ATMEGA32p Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) microcontroller is used as a transceiver to process stored-procedures that^’s commanded by a mobile application via a wireless connection. USR-WiFi-232-T module is used as a middle interface between wireless socket and asynchronous communication.  The purposed application takes control of arm lifting angles, speed and number of replications. The angle of the mechanical arm system is manipulated with potentiometer where variable resistance is transduced into degree. With this configuration, the arm can move and control its angle from -90 to 90 degree horizontal. Speed of movement is controlled by generating pulse width modulation signals (PWM) from microcontroller. PWM is then mapped to the range of 0.1-0.5 rpm. Number of replication is controlled by counting cycle of routines in a stored-procedure. The results showed that speed and number of cycles can be precisely controlled. The accuracy of degree had a discrepancy of ± 2 percent. The purposed system was satisfactory applied to rehabilitate patients resulting in self-operated by patients, therapists and all involved persons.