Study on a wearable elbow joint capable of mechanical adjustment of stiffness

Author

Morizono, Tetsuya ; Komiya, Tadahisa ; Higashi, Masatake

Author_Institution

Fac. of Inf. Eng., Fukuoka Inst. of Technol., Fukuoka, Japan

fYear

2009

fDate

Sept. 27 2009-Oct. 2 2009

Firstpage

552

Lastpage

557

Abstract

This paper is the first report on development of WELL-joint (Wearable ELbow Lightweight joint) for assist of a human elbow. The final goal of the development is realization of a lightweight and compact joint. Two actuators and two nonlinear springs constitute an antagonistic actuation system, and assist of a human elbow is realized by changing stiffness and equilibrium around the joint. This paper reports mechanical design and static analysis of WELL-joint. Experimental results are compared with analytic results for evaluation of control accuracy. Future work is also issued.

Keywords

actuators; artificial limbs; control system analysis; control system synthesis; handicapped aids; medical robotics; nonlinear control systems; WELL-joint development; actuator system; antagonistic actuation system; human elbow assistance; mechanical design; mechanical stiffness adjustment; musculoskeletal system; nonlinear spring; static analysis; wearable elbow lightweight joint development; wearable robot development; Actuators; Elbow; Human robot interaction; Mobile robots; Muscles; Musculoskeletal system; Pulleys; Robotic assembly; Springs; Viscosity;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Robot and Human Interactive Communication, 2009. RO-MAN 2009. The 18th IEEE International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Toyama

ISSN

1944-9445

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-5081-7

Electronic_ISBN

1944-9445

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ROMAN.2009.5326268

Filename

5326268