Design of a compliant joint actuator for lower-limb exoskeleton robot

For the rigid actuators of conventional exoskeletons are prone to produce motion impact and jitter, so this paper presents a novel design of compliant joint actuator for solve this situation. For the patient with lower limb disability lose the force perception will lead to them can't perceive the movement impact of the exoskeleton, which can reduce the rehabilitation effect or may cause secondary damage to the wearer. The new areas of robotic actuation have been established that requires more versatile structure. The design of new joint actuator adds compliant mechanism in motion transmission part which has a buffer effect to inhibit the external impacts and shocks, and can measure the output torque of the actuator. And in this paper, the detailed design of the exoskeleton structure is proposed based on the concept of compliant actuator. The content of this paper focuses on the mechanism design of the device and makes finite element simulation in ANSYS. Finally, simulation results of the compliant mechanism can describe the design for new actuator which aims at providing a more friendly interaction than existing exoskeleton actuator.

[1]  Bram Vanderborght,et al.  Design and control of a lower limb exoskeleton for robot-assisted gait training , 2009 .

[2]  Nitish V. Thakor,et al.  A novel compact compliant actuator design for rehabilitation robots , 2013, 2013 IEEE 13th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR).

[3]  C. Gosselin,et al.  Singularity Analysis of 3-DOF Planar Parallel Mechanisms via Screw Theory , 2003 .

[4]  R. Riener,et al.  Hybrid force-position control yields cooperative behaviour of the rehabilitation robot LOKOMAT , 2005, 9th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, 2005. ICORR 2005..

[5]  Manuel G. Catalano,et al.  Variable impedance actuators: A review , 2013, Robotics Auton. Syst..

[6]  Jianhua Wang,et al.  Design of a biologically inspired lower limb exoskeleton for human gait rehabilitation. , 2016, The Review of scientific instruments.

[7]  Volkan Patoglu,et al.  A self-adjusting knee exoskeleton for robot-assisted treatment of knee injuries , 2011, 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[8]  R. Ham,et al.  Compliant actuator designs , 2009, IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine.

[9]  Martin Tegenthoff,et al.  Locomotion training using voluntary driven exoskeleton (HAL) in acute incomplete SCI , 2014, Neurology.

[10]  A. Esquenazi,et al.  Safety and tolerance of the ReWalk™ exoskeleton suit for ambulation by people with complete spinal cord injury: A pilot study , 2012, The journal of spinal cord medicine.

[11]  David E. Orin,et al.  Design of Series-Elastic Actuators for Dynamic Robots With Articulated Legs , 2009 .

[12]  Weihai Chen,et al.  A piezo-driven 2-DOF compliant micropositioning stage with remote center of motion , 2016 .

[13]  K.H. Low,et al.  A 3-DOF flexure-based fixture for passive assembly of optical switches , 2005, Proceedings, 2005 IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics..

[14]  F M van Krieken,et al.  A model of lower extremity muscular anatomy. , 1982, Journal of biomechanical engineering.

[15]  H. Kazerooni,et al.  Biomechanical design of the Berkeley lower extremity exoskeleton (BLEEX) , 2006, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics.