Wearable agrirobot

We have developed an exoskeleton robot for agriculture. It assists farmers in harvesting vegetables and fruits, and carrying the heavy load such as potato bags and cabbage boxes. We have made the robots for some types of farming and discussed the sensors and control of it. We have also performed experiments in order to demonstrate how the robot operates for agricultural purposes thereby showing the potential of the robo

Pneumatikus izomelemek alkalmazása gyógyterápiás eszközökhöz

Many important activities of daily living (e. g. dressing and eating) depend on two-handed function. For people affected by stroke, frequent physical therapy has been suggested to be a successful rehabilitation. The use of robotic devices to assist the therapies is becoming more commonly, but traditional robots are usually stiff. The devices have to be able to provide the treatment way of repetitive practice. More and more devices consist of pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) as a good solution for actuators. There is a need for affordable, economical, low cost, lightweight, practical, low stiffness, multi-dimensional and low noise operation devices to assist therapy. In this paper we present some possibilities of use of PAM in rehabilitation devices

Wearable agrirobot

We have developed an exoskeleton robot for agriculture. It assists farmers in harvesting vegetables and fruits, and carrying the heavy load such as potato bags and cabbage boxes. We have made the robots for some types of farming and discussed the sensors and control of it. We have also performed experiments in order to demonstrate how the robot operates for agricultural purposes thereby showing the potential of the robo

Wearable agrirobot

We have developed an exoskeleton robot for agriculture. It assists farmers in harvesting vegetables and fruits, and carrying the heavy load such as potato bags and cabbage boxes. We have made the robots for some types of farming and discussed the sensors and control of it. We have also performed experiments in order to demonstrate how the robot operates for agricultural purposes thereby showing the potential of the robo

Investigation and application of pneumatic artificial muscles

The movement of pneumatic artifi cial muscle (PAM) is soft that similar to the human muscle therefore it can be used as the actuator for rehabilitation devices and prostheses. In this paper a Fluid Muscle manufactured by Festo is tested, and some experimental results, rehabilitation devices and prostheses are shown. Our goal is to construct an intelligent prosthetic arm using PAMs. DOI: 10.17489/biohun/2010/1/2

Upper limb soft robotic wearable devices: a systematic review

Introduction: Soft robotic wearable devices, referred to as exosuits, can be a valid alternative to rigid exoskeletons when it comes to daily upper limb support. Indeed, their inherent flexibility improves comfort, usability, and portability while not constraining the user’s natural degrees of freedom. This review is meant to guide the reader in understanding the current approaches across all design and production steps that might be exploited when developing an upper limb robotic exosuit. Methods: The literature research regarding such devices was conducted in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. The investigated features are the intended scenario, type of actuation, supported degrees of freedom, low-level control, high-level control with a focus on intention detection, technology readiness level, and type of experiments conducted to evaluate the device. Results: A total of 105 articles were collected, describing 69 different devices. Devices were grouped according to their actuation type. More than 80% of devices are meant either for rehabilitation, assistance, or both. The most exploited actuation types are pneumatic (52%) and DC motors with cable transmission (29%). Most devices actuate 1 (56%) or 2 (28%) degrees of freedom, and the most targeted joints are the elbow and the shoulder. Intention detection strategies are implemented in 33% of the suits and include the use of switches and buttons, IMUs, stretch and bending sensors, EMG and EEG measurements. Most devices (75%) score a technology readiness level of 4 or 5. Conclusion: Although few devices can be considered ready to reach the market, exosuits show very high potential for the assistance of daily activities. Clinical trials exploiting shared evaluation metrics are needed to assess the effectiveness of upper limb exosuits on target users

Physiological and kinematic effects of a soft exosuit on arm movements

Background: Soft wearable robots (exosuits), being lightweight, ergonomic and low power-demanding, are attractive for a variety of applications, ranging from strength augmentation in industrial scenarios, to medical assistance for people with motor impairments. Understanding how these devices affect the physiology and mechanics of human movements is fundamental for quantifying their benefits and drawbacks, assessing their suitability for different applications and guiding a continuous design refinement. Methods: We present a novel wearable exosuit for assistance/augmentation of the elbow and introduce a controller that compensates for gravitational forces acting on the limb while allowing the suit to cooperatively move with its wearer. Eight healthy subjects wore the exosuit and performed elbow movements in two conditions: with assistance from the device (powered) and without assistance (unpowered). The test included a dynamic task, to evaluate the impact of the assistance on the kinematics and dynamics of human movement, and an isometric task, to assess its influence on the onset of muscular fatigue. Results: Powered movements showed a low but significant degradation in accuracy and smoothness when compared to the unpowered ones. The degradation in kinematics was accompanied by an average reduction of 59.20±5.58% (mean ± standard error) of the biological torque and 64.8±7.66% drop in muscular effort when the exosuit assisted its wearer. Furthermore, an analysis of the electromyographic signals of the biceps brachii during the isometric task revealed that the exosuit delays the onset of muscular fatigue. Conclusions: The study examined the effects of an exosuit on the characteristics of human movements. The suit supports most of the power needed to move and reduces the effort that the subject needs to exert to counteract gravity in a static posture, delaying the onset of muscular fatigue. We interpret the decline in kinematic performance as a technical limitation of the current device. This work suggests that a powered exosuit can be a good candidate for industrial and clinical applications, where task efficiency and hardware transparency are paramount

Architectures of soft pneumatic actuators for wearable human assistive applications

This thesis presents the design and analysis of two novel fabric-like architectures of soft pneumatic actuators known as Fiber Reinforced Elastomeric Enclosures (FREEs) and studies the implication of wearing them as sleeves around the elbow joint. The first architecture is a helical arrangement of FREEs, which is shown to directionally modulate its stiffness. The second architecture is a nested arrangement of FREEs, which is shown to provide 70% more actuation stroke than a single actuator. The thesis presents an analytical framework, first to accurately capture the behavior of a contracting FREE actuator, and then the model stiffness modulation and stroke amplification functionalities of the two architectures. These models are verified with both benchtop experiments and preliminary human testing. The thesis presents design guidelines to configure these architectures for any functional and size requirements

Robot Assisted Shoulder Rehabilitation: Biomechanical Modelling, Design and Performance Evaluation

The upper limb rehabilitation robots have made it possible to improve the motor recovery in stroke survivors while reducing the burden on physical therapists. Compared to manual arm training, robot-supported training can be more intensive, of longer duration, repetitive and task-oriented. To be aligned with the most biomechanically complex joint of human body, the shoulder, specific considerations have to be made in the design of robotic shoulder exoskeletons. It is important to assist all shoulder degrees-of-freedom (DOFs) when implementing robotic exoskeletons for rehabilitation purposes to increase the range of motion (ROM) and avoid any joint axes misalignments between the robot and human’s shoulder that cause undesirable interaction forces and discomfort to the user. The main objective of this work is to design a safe and a robotic exoskeleton for shoulder rehabilitation with physiologically correct movements, lightweight modules, self-alignment characteristics and large workspace. To achieve this goal a comprehensive review of the existing shoulder rehabilitation exoskeletons is conducted first to outline their main advantages and disadvantages, drawbacks and limitations. The research has then focused on biomechanics of the human shoulder which is studied in detail using robotic analysis techniques, i.e. the human shoulder is modelled as a mechanism. The coupled constrained structure of the robotic exoskeleton connected to a human shoulder is considered as a hybrid human-robot mechanism to solve the problem of joint axes misalignments. Finally, a real-scale prototype of the robotic shoulder rehabilitation exoskeleton was built to test its operation and its ability for shoulder rehabilitation

Design, Fabrication, and Control of an Upper Arm Exoskeleton Assistive Robot

Stroke is the primary cause of permanent impairment and neurological damage in the United States and Europe. Annually, about fifteen million individuals worldwide suffer from stroke, which kills about one third of them. For many years, it was believed that major recovery can be achieved only in the first six months after a stroke. More recent research has demonstrated that even many years after a stroke, significant improvement is not out of reach. However, economic pressures, the aging population, and lack of specialists and available human resources can interrupt therapy, which impedes full recovery of patients after being discharged from hospital following initial rehabilitation. Robotic devices, and in particular portable robots that provide rehabilitation therapy at home and in clinics, are a novel way not only to optimize the cost of therapy but also to let more patients benefit from rehabilitation for a longer time. Robots used for such purposes should be smaller, lighter and more affordable than the robots currently used in clinics and hospitals. The common human-machine interaction design criteria such as work envelopes, safety, comfort, adaptability, space limitations, and weight-to-force ratio must still be taken into consideration.;In this work a light, wearable, affordable assistive robot was designed and a controller to assist with an activity of daily life (ADL) was developed. The mechanical design targeted the most vulnerable group of the society to stroke, based on the average size and age of the patients, with adjustability to accommodate a variety of individuals. The novel mechanical design avoids motion singularities and provides a large workspace for various ADLs. Unlike similar exoskeleton robots, the actuators are placed on the patient\u27s torso and the force is transmitted through a Bowden cable mechanism. Since the actuators\u27 mass does not affect the motion of the upper extremities, the robot can be more agile and more powerful. A compact novel actuation method with high power-to-weight ratio called the twisted string actuation method was used. Part of the research involved selection and testing of several string compositions and configurations to compare their suitability and to characterize their performance. Feedback sensor count and type have been carefully considered to keep the cost of the system as low as possible. A master-slave controller was designed and its performance in tracking the targeted ADL trajectory was evaluated for one degree of freedom (DOF). An outline for proposed future research will be presented