S1110104 メカニカル安全装置を搭載したロボットスーツの開発 : 安全装置の有効性の検討([S111-01]第20回卒業研究コンテスト(1),機素潤滑設計部門)

Abstract

Safety is one of the most important issues in rehabilitation robot suits. We have developed a rehabilitation robot suit with two mechanical safety devices. The robot suit assists a patient's knee joint. We call one of the safety devices the "velocity-based safety device" and the other the "torque-based safety device". The velocity-based safety device switches off the motor if it detects an unexpected joint angular velocity. Similarly, the torque-based safety device switches off the motor if it detects an unexpected joint torque. The safety devices can work even when the computer breaks down, because they consist of only passive mechanical components without actuators, controllers or batteries. In this paper, we review the characteristics of the safety devices and the rehabilitation robot suit equipped with the safety devices. Furthermore, we present experimental results to verify the effectiveness of the safety devices in the robot suit having a weight simulating a patient's leg.