Applying Screw Theory to Design the Turmell-Bot: A Cable-Driven, Reconfigurable Ankle Rehabilitation Parallel Robot

[EN] The ankle is a complex joint with a high injury incidence. Rehabilitation Robotics applied to the ankle is a very active research field. We present the kinematics and statics of a cable-driven reconfigurable ankle rehabilitation robot. First, we studied how the tendons pull mid-foot bones aroun...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Vargas-Riaño, Julio, Agudelo-Varela, Óscar, Valera Fernández, Ángel|||0000-0001-6843-6394
Formato: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2023
País:España
Recursos:Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV)
Repositorio:RiuNet. Repositorio Institucional de la Universitat Politécnica de Valéncia
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:riunet.upv.es:10251/205848
Acesso em linha:https://riunet.upv.es/handle/10251/205848
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Medical and rehabilitation robotics
Biomechanics
Parallel manipulator
Cable-driven
Kinematic analysis
Robot design
Mechanism synthesis
Compliant mechanism
INGENIERIA DE SISTEMAS Y AUTOMATICA
Descrição
Resumo:[EN] The ankle is a complex joint with a high injury incidence. Rehabilitation Robotics applied to the ankle is a very active research field. We present the kinematics and statics of a cable-driven reconfigurable ankle rehabilitation robot. First, we studied how the tendons pull mid-foot bones around the talocrural and subtalar axes. We proposed a hybrid serial-parallel mechanism analogous to the ankle. Then, using screw theory, we synthesized a cable-driven robot with the human ankle in the closed-loop kinematics. We incorporated a draw-wire sensor to measure the axes' pose and compute the product of exponentials. We also reconfigured the cables to balance the tension and pressure forces using the axis projection on the base and platform planes. Furthermore, we computed the workspace to show that the reconfigurable design fits several sizes. The data used are from anthropometry and statistics. Finally, we validated the robot's statics with MuJoCo for various cable length groups corresponding to the axes' range of motion. We suggested a platform adjusting system and an alignment method. The design is lightweight, and the cable-driven robot has advantages over rigid parallel robots, such as Stewart platforms. We will use compliant actuators for enhancing human-robot interaction.