Recent development of mechanisms and control strategies for robot-assisted lower limb rehabilitation

Robot-assisted rehabilitation and therapy has become more and more frequently used to help the elderly, disabled patients or movement disorders to perform exercise and training. The field of robot-assisted lower limb rehabilitation has rapidly evolved in the last decade. This article presents a review on the most recent progress (from year 2001 to 2014) of mechanisms, training modes and control strategies for lower limb rehabilitation robots. Special attention is paid to the adaptive robot control methods considering hybrid data fusion and patient evaluation in robot-assisted passive and active lower limb rehabilitation. The characteristics and clinical outcomes of different training modes and control algorithms in recent studies are analysed and summarized. Research gaps and future directions are also highlighted in this paper to improve the outcome of robot-assisted rehabilitation.