Development of a Four-Channel Haptic System for Remote Assessment of Patients with Impaired Hands

Haptic devices have proven effective in stimulating proprioceptive sensing in post-stroke patients. In this work, pre-existing devices were used together in a remote environment for the teleassessment of impaired hands. A four-channel bilateral control system in the presence of large and variable time delay is proposed as a proof of concept. Time delay is managed with a novel communication disturbance observer (CDOB). The system also employed a scaling down compensation value (SDCV) for the CDOB. The proposed control system was tested successfully in bilateral haptic interaction, simulating a remote motor and functional evaluation of patients hands, guaranteeing safe and stable interaction, even in the presence of large network delays. © 2016 Cambridge University Press.