Mechatronic medical device for wrist rehabilitation

In the paper, the mechatronic design of a new type of Powerball®, named ControlledBioBall, carried out to overcome the present drawbacks, is be presented and discussed with special focus on the software developed in the editor LabVIEW®. Devices for wrist rehabilitation must be able to make movements of the wrist quirky and complex. Powerball® is such a market existing device that can be used for wrist rehabilitation and also as a sports aid for strengthening the wrist. The operation of Powerball® is based on the gyroscope principle. While the gyroscope is spinning, the movement of the wrist will tilt the shell and a reaction moment will be produced. Nevertheless, Powerball® in the existing market have considerable limitations, such as: must be manually started; the rotation speed is not controlled; the torque must be at least equal to the minimum torque to maintain the rotation of the mass inside Powerball®, and finally, due to the small panel attached to the ball patients will find inconvenience to view and manipulate it. This manner, for improving the effectivity of the wrist rehabilitation processes, a new type of Powerball® has been developed. This will have adjustable speed given by an electric motor inside the ball, and consequently the manual start and the requirement of minimum torque will be eliminated. Also, a system composed by sensors, data acquisition board and human-machine interface will be considered to allow the process of rehabilitation to be fully controlled..