Abstract  Every year more than 5 million people worldwide become hemiplegic as a direct consequence of stroke. This neurological deficiency, often leads to a partial or a total loss of standing up abilities and /or ambulation skills. In order to propose new supporting solutions lying between the wheelchair and the walker, this paper presents a technological strategy for designing an assistive device for a biomechanical study of the Sit-To-Stand movement (STS). The control algorithms are implemented in TwinCAT runtime environment. The communi-cation between the component and the control computer is ensured via the EtherCAT fieldbus. The aim of this architecture lies in the fact that it allows a quick development of a research prototype with the same safety issues found on an industrial machine. An experimental test of the STS strategy is presented and discussed in order to evaluate the strategy.

Keywords: sit-to-stand   parallel manipulator   EtherCAT fieldbus   assistive device   rehabilitation   stroke 

Full text is available at :https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42235-018-0053-5