Fabrication of “18 Weave” Muscles and Their Application to Soft Power Support Suit for Upper Limbs Using Thin McKibben Muscle

Abstract

In this letter, we propose a novel active weave named “18 Weave” using a thin McKibben muscle and report on the application to a prototype soft power support suit for the upper limb. The active weave utilizes the flexibility of the thin McKibben muscle, which is used for warps and wefts. From the proposed structure, we confirmed that a 19.4% additional displacement is achieved compared to a single artificial muscle. The flexible and lightweight assistance suit can be realized with the active weave that has advantages of flexibility and shape adaptability. We confirmed the compliance and fatigue alleviation effect of the suit. Measurements of the myopotentials confirmed significant decreases in the activities of the anterior deltoid, posterior deltoid, biceps brachii, and triceps brachii muscles in their integrated electromyogram (iEMG).