A Cable-Driven Exosuit for Upper Limb Flexion Based on Fibres Compliance

Flexible soft exoskeletons, so-called exosuits, are robotic devices that interact with their users to assist or enhance muscle performance. Their lightweight design and lack of rigid parts allow assisting the user's natural motion without any constraints. They are thereby valuable in carrying o...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Samper-Escudero, José Luis, Giménez-Fernández, Antonio, Sánchez-Urán, Miguel Ángel, Ferre, Manuel
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión enviada para evaluación y publicación
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Repositorio:DIGITAL.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
OAI Identifier:oai:dnet:digitalcsic_::31ecaf70af448911a1145455a5395ca9
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10261/229530
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Exosuit
Flexible exoskeleton
Soft exoskeleton
Exoskeleton
Upper limbs
Human-robot interaction
Textile
Wearable
Backpack
Descripción
Sumario:Flexible soft exoskeletons, so-called exosuits, are robotic devices that interact with their users to assist or enhance muscle performance. Their lightweight design and lack of rigid parts allow assisting the user's natural motion without any constraints. They are thereby valuable in carrying out daily labour tasks and performing active stances of rehabilitation. Nonetheless, the usage of these devices in long-term applications demands anatomically adaptive designs and mechanisms to tackle textile artefacts and discrepancies in the human constitution. The soft exoskeleton described in this article is a textile-wearable design that assists shoulder and elbow flexion. The cable-driven actuation is embedded in a jacket by using several textiles and deformable parts. The inconveniences of using textile such as slipping, dampening, and pressure sores are tackled by combining textile layers with force-compliant sewing. The design also includes pieces for cable guidance, anchoring and support. These parts employ different tailoring methods so as to ease fabrication, wearing and cleaning. The motors and electronics, whose design is compatible with textiles too, are placed in a backpack. This configuration reduces forces from loads in motion and weight on the arm. Finally, the last part of the document discusses the preliminary results that have been obtained from four subjects who have worn the device.