Abstract: Considering the safety and stability of an upper limb rehabilitation robot and patients’ active participation in rehabilitation training stage， a contour following strategy different from trajectory tracking is applied， as well as an active controller. The contour following strategy can be implemented through confining robot’s motion by velocity fields. The velocity fields enable the robot to follow desired curves in space smoothly and stably. The velocity of robot motion can be adjusted according to the patient’s forces which are taken into account in the active controller， thus promoting the patients to participate rehabilitation training actively. Simulation results show that the contour following and active controller ensure tracking precision and realize human-robot interaction.

Key words: upper limb rehabilitation robot, velocity field control, contour following, active control