Human Assistive Lower Limb Exoskeleton

Abstract

Exoskeletons have proven to be helpful in assisting humans in major fields such as rehabilitation, military, industries and more. However, even though these exoskeletons provide useful features,most of them fail to reach humans in need due to their high cost. In this paper, we present Human Assistive Lower Limb Exoskeleton (HALEX), a low-cost exoskeleton developed to provide human assistance during gait locomotion. HALEX is a hybrid lower limb exoskeleton which provides enough DOFs to users while locomotion. The paper discusses the development of HALEX, it uses electric motors coupled with self-developed gearbox at hip and knee and uses a passive element that is a tension spring at the ankle joint. Adjustable link lengths allow wearers of different heights and waist sizes to use this exoskeleton with ease. A load carrying structure allowsthe wearer to carry additional weights with reduced efforts. Tests were done to obtain the scale of assistance HALEX provides and the results of the same are discussed