Upper Limb Rehabilitation Exoskeletons Based On Pneumatic Actuation: A Short Comprehensive Review

Abstract

The importance of using robots as an assistant in the physical rehabilitation process, which was physically demanding for therapists, required a lot of time and depended on the health condition of patients, became the main objective of the current paper. In particular, the comparison of different approaches to rehabilitation and actuation strategies and actuation systems used for upper-limb robotic rehabilitation devices with special attention to pneumatic actuation systems became the aim of this research. The comparison was conducted based on the analysis of the characteristics, actuation strategy, advantages, and disadvantages of these systems from 2020 to 2026. As a result, every actuation system and rehabilitation approach had its peculiarities and practical applications. The importance of pneumatic actuation was due to its flexibility, safe human-robot interaction, shock absorption, and lightweight. However, its nonlinearity remained the main disadvantage.