Robot-assisted rehabilitation has become a new mainstream trend for the treatment of stroke patients with movement disability. Pneumatic muscle (PM) is one of the most promising actuators for rehabilitation robots, due to its inherent compliance and safety features. In this paper, we conduct a systematic review on the soft rehabilitation robots driven by pneumatic muscles. This review discusses up to date mechanical structures and control strategies for PMs-actuated rehabilitation robots. A variety of state-of-the-art soft rehabilitation robots are classified and reviewed according to the actuation configurations. Special attentions are paid to control strategies under different mechanical designs, with advanced control approaches to overcome PM’s highly nonlinear and time-varying behaviors and to enhance the adaptability to different patients. Finally, we analyze and highlight the current research gaps and the future directions in this field, which is potential for providing a reliable guidance on the development of advanced soft rehabilitation robots.

机器人辅助康复已经成为治疗运动障碍中风患者的新的主流趋势。由于其固有的顺从性和安全性，气动肌肉（PM）是康复机器人最有希望的执行器之一。在本文中，我们对气动肌肉驱动的软康复机器人进行了系统的综述。这篇评论讨论了PM驱动的康复机器人的最新机械结构和控制策略。根据驱动配置对各种先进的软康复机器人进行分类和审查。特别注意不同机械设计下的控制策略，其先进的控制方法可克服PM的高度非线性和时变行为，并增强其对不同患者的适应性。