Abstract: As an effective therapy for treating unilateral neglect, Mirror Therapy (MT) is employed in the upper limb motor function rehabilitation of hemiplegic patients. However, traditional MT has a serious limitation—the Impaired Limb (IL) doesn’t actually move. In this study, a novel performance-based assistance strategy suitable for Robotic Mirror Therapy (RMT) based on MT is proposed. A guiding assistance based on the progress difference HL and IL is constructed in trajectory guidance, and a multi-stiffness region correction force field based on trajectory tracking error is designed to constrain IL’s deviation from the intended path in trajectory correction assistance. To validate the presented strategy, a series of experiments on a RMT system based on the end-effector upper limb rehabilitation robot are conducted. The results verify the performance and feasibility of this strategy.

Key words: Rehabilitation robot , · Stroke , · Robotic mirror therapy , · Upper limb , · Assistance control