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

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.