Positional Solution of a Novel Knee Rehabilitation Mechanism

Abstract

In this paper, the design of knee assistive exoskeleton mechanism was discussed, which could enable human knee axis to align the exoskeleton active joint axis ideally. Based on the data of the knee joint flexion experiment, the knee joint screw motion parameters could be extracted. According to the knee joint physiological structure and the instantaneous characteristics of screw axis, the knee joint kinematic model was established. Then, according to the DOFs analysis of human-machine closed chain and the human-machine compatibility, a novel knee exoskeleton mechanism configuration was proposed. And the positional solution of human-machine closed kinematic chain was solved. It can be found that the motion between knee assistive exoskeleton mechanism’s joint and human knee joint had certainly quantificational relationship, and the knee assistive mechanism had a fine motion synchronicity with the human knee joint. In addition, while the method of screw axis and the exoskeleton design were proposed for human knee joint, they are also applied to other human limbs.