Smart Mechatronic Elbow Brace using EMG Sensors

Abstract

Majority of injuries are involved in damages of elbow and the recovery therapy period may take up to 12-24 months in health care centres. Therefore, it is needed to supply a smart mechatronic brace for patients who cannot come to health care centres, can exercise their rehabilitation at home. This project designs and tests a smart mechatronic brace for home rehabilitation of elbow injured patients. The device is run by electromyography (EMG) sensors. Data from EMG sensors is processed, filtered, smoothed, and converted into pulse width modulation (PWM) to run the DC motor. The system is controlled by adaptive linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) and Kalman filter (KF). The DC motor can track well the human motion with the error less than 5%. The system is relatively simple, reliable, safe, low cost and high accuracy.