This paper presents and studies various selected literature primarily from conference proceedings, journals and clinical tests of the robotic, mechatronics, neurology and biomedical engineering of rehabilitation robotic systems. The present paper focuses of three main categories: types of rehabilitation robots, key technologies with current issues and future challenges. Literature on fundamental research with some examples from commercialized robots and new robot development projects related to rehabilitation are introduced. Most of the commercialized robots presented in this paper are well known especially to robotics engineers and scholars in the robotic field, but are less known to humanities scholars. The field of rehabilitation robot research is expanding; in light of this, some of the current issues and future challenges in rehabilitation robot engineering are recalled, examined and clarified with future directions. This paper is concluded with some recommendations with respect to rehabilitation robots.
Physiologically, blood ejected from the left ventricle in systole exhibited spiral flow characteristics. This spiral flow has been proven to have several advantages such as lateral reduction of directed forces and thrombus formation, while it also appears to be clinically beneficial in suppressing neurological complications. In order to deliver spiral flow characteristics during cardiopulmonary bypass operation, several modifications have been made on an aortic cannula either at the internal or at the outflow tip; these modifications have proven to yield better hemodynamic performances compared to standard cannula. However, there is no modification done at the inlet part of the aortic cannula for inducing spiral flow so far. This study was carried out by attaching a spiral inducer at the inlet of an aortic cannula. Then, the hemodynamic performances of the new cannula were compared with the standard straight tip end-hole cannula. This is achieved by modeling the cannula and attaching the cannula at a patient-specific aorta model. Numerical approach was utilized to evaluate the hemodynamic performance, and a water jet impact experiment was used to demonstrate the jet force generated by the cannula. The new spiral flow aortic cannula has shown some improvements by reducing approximately 21% of impinging velocity near to the aortic wall, and more than 58% reduction on total force generated as compared to standard cannula.