Connected Elbow Exoskeleton System for Rehabilitation Training Based on Virtual Reality and ContextAware Traditional physiotherapy rehabilitation systems are evolving into more advanced systems based on exoskeleton systems and Virtual Reality (VR) environments that enhance and improve rehabilitation techniques and physical exercise. In addition, due to current connected systems and paradigms such as the Internet of Things (IoT) or Ambient Intelligent (AmI) systems, it is possible to design and develop advanced, effective, and lowcost medical tools that patients may have in their homes. This article presents a lowcost exoskeleton for the elbow that is connected to a ContextAware architecture and thanks to a VR system the patient can perform rehabilitation exercises in an interactive way. The integration of virtual reality technology in rehabilitation exercises provides an intensive, repetitive and taskoriented capacity to improve patient motivation and reduce work on medical professionals. One of the system highlights is the intelligent ability to generate new exercises, monitor the exercises performed by users in search of progress or possible problems and the dynamic modification of the exercises characteristics. The platform also allows the incorporation of commercial medical sensors capable of collecting valuable information for greater accuracy in the diagnosis and evolution of patients. A case study with real patients with promising results has been carried out.

A Design For An Exoskeletal Device With Reduced Reliance On Joint Alignment As robotic exoskeletons begin to find more use in the areas of medicine and rehabilitation, efforts to improve comfort and reduce the chance of injury for wearers have resulted in the development of joint mechanisms with extra passive degrees of freedom. The added redundancy in such mechanisms enables the system to accommodate for joint axis misalignments between the exoskeleton and the human skeleton, as well as deviations from ideal circular motion that are inherent in normal human body motion. However, proper measurement of joint positions and torques, and by extension proper position and impedance control of the exoskeleton still relies on the approximate alignment of these joint axes. This paper presents a method for such a system to calculate the pose and torque about a human elbow joint for a wider variety of possible mounting positions. Using the developed calibration procedure, the main joint of the exoskeleton can be located as much as 110 mm away from the elbow and still position the elbow to within 10 degrees of a given flexion angle and measure torques to within 13 percent of the actual value. An elbow exoskeleton was developed employing this system and tested for comfort. The wearer was able to comfortably move their elbow in any desired motions using the devicexe2x80x99s passive mode. These results demonstrate the feasibility of using such a system on a robotic rehabilitation device and open up more possibilities for future exoskeleton designs not limited by joint placement.