Comfort-Centered Design of a Lightweight and Backdrivable Knee Exoskeleton
Junlin Wang,Xiao Li,Tzu-Hao Huang,Shuangyue Yu,Yanjun Li,Tianyao Chen,Alessandra Carriero,Mooyeon Oh-Park,Hao Su +8 more
- Vol. 3, Iss: 4, pp 4265-4272
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TLDR
Kinematic simulations demonstrate that misalignment between the robot joint and knee joint can be reduced by 74% at maximum knee flexion and a low impedance mechanical transmission reduces the reflected inertia and damping of the actuator to human, thus the exoskeleton is highlybackdrivable.Abstract:
This letter presents design principles for comfort-centered wearable robots and their application in a lightweight and backdrivable knee exoskeleton. The mitigation of discomfort is treated as mechanical design and control issues and three solutions are proposed in this letter: 1) a new wearable structure optimizes the strap attachment configuration and suit layout to ameliorate excessive shear forces of conventional wearable structure design; 2) rolling knee joint and double-hinge mechanisms reduce the misalignment in the sagittal and frontal plane, without increasing the mechanical complexity and inertia, respectively; 3) a low impedance mechanical transmission reduces the reflected inertia and damping of the actuator to human, thus the exoskeleton is highlybackdrivable. Kinematic simulations demonstrate that misalignment between the robot joint and knee joint can be reduced by 74% at maximum knee flexion. In experiments, the exoskeleton in the unpowered mode exhibits 1.03 Nm root mean square (RMS) low resistive torque. The torque control experiments demonstrate 0.31 Nm RMS torque tracking error in three human subjects.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Design and Benchtop Validation of a Powered Knee-Ankle Prosthesis with High-Torque, Low-Impedance Actuators
TL;DR: Open-loop impedance control tests prove that the intrinsic impedance and unmodeled dynamics of the actuator are sufficiently small to control joint impedance without torque feedback.
Journal ArticleDOI
Knee exoskeletons for gait rehabilitation and human performance augmentation: A state-of-the-art
TL;DR: A systematic review of knee exoskeletons presents the biomechanics of the human knee joint, including the actuators and sensors, followed by the introduction of the corresponding control strategies.
Journal ArticleDOI
Quasi-Direct Drive Actuation for a Lightweight Hip Exoskeleton With High Backdrivability and High Bandwidth
Shuangyue Yu,Tzu-Hao Huang,Xiaolong Yang,Chunhai Jiao,Jianfu Yang,Yue Chen,Jingang Yi,Hao Su +7 more
TL;DR: The design and human–robot interaction modeling of a portable hip exoskeleton based on a custom quasi-direct drive actuation with performance improvement compared with state-of-the-art exoskeletons is described and demonstrated.
Journal ArticleDOI
Design and Control of a High-Torque and Highly Backdrivable Hybrid Soft Exoskeleton for Knee Injury Prevention During Squatting
Shuangyue Yu,Tzu-Hao Huang,Dianpeng Wang,Brian Lynn,Dina Sayd,Viktor Silivanov,Young Soo Park,Yingli Tian,Hao Su +8 more
TL;DR: This letter presents design and control innovations of wearable robots that tackle two barriers to widespread adoption of powered exoskeletons: restriction of human movement and versatile control of wearable co-robot systems.
Journal ArticleDOI
Spine-Inspired Continuum Soft Exoskeleton for Stoop Lifting Assistance
Xiaolong Yang,Tzu-Hao Huang,Hang Hu,Shuangyue Yu,Sainan Zhang,Xianlian Zhou,Alessandra Carriero,Guang Yue,Hao Su +8 more
TL;DR: In this article, a spine-inspired wearable exoskeleton is presented to assist both squat and stoops while not impeding walking motion, which can reduce multiple types of forces along the human spine.
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