Abstract
This paper describes the experimental testing of an actuated lower-limb exoskeleton. The exoskeleton is designed to alleviate the loading at the knee joint by supplying assistive torque. It is hypothesized that the support provided will reduce the muscular effort required to perform activities of daily living and thus facilitate the execution of these movements by those who previously had limited mobility. The exoskeleton is actuated by four pneumatic artificial muscles, each providing 150N of pulling force to assist in the flexion and extension of the knee joint. The exoskeleton system estimates the user's intended motion using muscle activity information recorded from five thigh muscles, together with the knee angle. To experimentally evaluate the performance of the device, the exoskeleton was worn by an able-bodied user, whilst performing the sit-to-stand-to-sit movement. In addition, the three intention estimation algorithms were also tested to determine the influence of the various algorithms on the ...
Highlights
Research on exoskeleton devices to augment or support a human user is not a new idea
In addition to the original military and medical applications, exoskeletons are currently being developed to assist in rehabilitation, to support factory workers while performing manual work, to increase the mobility of the elderly and even for purely entertainment purposes
The control output varies the pressure within the pneumatic artificial muscles (PAM) through a proportional pressure regulator (PPR) and a pair of high speed valves (HSV)
Summary
Research on exoskeleton devices to augment or support a human user is not a new idea. The authors stated that the design of the exoskeletons was inspired by passive support mechanism such as canes, caster walkers and walking frames These passive devices do not just increase stability, and partly reduce the loading, due to gravitational forces, on the muscles. There has been renewed research into lower-limb exoskeletons designed to provide gait assistance to paraplegics and hemiplegics [10, 11] The operation of these devices defers slightly from the other medical exoskeletons in that the exoskeleton provides assistive torque at the joints, and directs the movements of the user’s limbs.
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