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Abstract
The purpose of this work is to optimize the rigid or compliant behavior of a new type of parallel-actuated robot architecture developed for exoskeleton robot applications. This is done in an effort to provide those that utilize the architecture with the means to maximize, minimize, or simply adjust its stiffness property so as to optimize it for particular tasks, such as augmented lifting or impact absorption. This research even provides the means to produce non-homogeneous stiffness properties for applications that may require non-homogeneous dynamic behavior. In this work, the new architecture is demonstrated in the form of a shoulder exoskeleton. An analytical stiffness model for the shoulder exoskeleton is created and validated experimentally. The model is then used, along with a method of bounded nonlinear multi-objective optimization to configure the parallel substructures for desired rigidity, compliance or nonhomogeneous stiffness behavior. The stiffness model and its optimization can be applied beyond the shoulder to any embodiment of the new parallel architecture, including hip, wrist and ankle robot applications. In order to exemplify this, we present the rigidity optimization for a theoretical hip exoskeleton.
Highlights
In the field of exoskeleton robotics, parallel actuation can offer many advantages over more commonly used serial actuation
It should be noted that efforts to minimize backlash were taken by applying minor tension of the three substructures against the shoulder plate equal to the measured backlash of the servos. This minimizes backlash without changing the kinematic solution
In addition to the findings presented for the 4B-SPM shoulder exoskeleton, the maximum stiffness results of a theoretical hip exoskeleton are presented
Summary
In the field of exoskeleton robotics, parallel actuation can offer many advantages over more commonly used serial actuation. Parallel actuation has been utilized for a number of exoskeleton applications. These include devices for the wrist, ankle, hip and shoulder. The wrist exoskeleton RiceWrist (Gupta et al, 2008), uses a 3-RPS (revolute-prismatic-spherical) architecture with an additional serial revolute joint to generate 4-DoF. These DoF include the rotation of the forearm, wrist height and 2-DoF in rotation of the end-effector platform.
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