Mechatronic system for verticalization and aiding the motion of the disabled

Abstract

Mechatronics is nowadays a dominating concept in design of various kinds of systems and technical devices. High speeds of data processing by control units of mechatronic systems, as well as high dynamics of their actuators allow the systems to be applied in wider fields. This refers to the medicine as well, especially while making attempts to replace lost human motor abilities by means of robots aiding the man. These devices can be divided into three groups: exoskeletons designed to strengthen the natural force of human muscles, orthotic robots that restore lost or weakened functions of human limbs, and prosthetic robots replacing an amputated limb. The first and the third group are known quite well, whereas the orthotic robots are at an initial phase of their development. The authors have worked on a device for aiding the motion of disabled people suffering from paresis of the lower limbs. The paper presents a concept and a structure of the system that has been created, comparing it with similar devices that have already existed. There are indicated some connections and areas where the subunits merge, as well as the rules of their working with the user.

The control algorithm of the lower limb exoskeleton synchronous gait

“…As noted earlier many researches are devoted to the bipedal gait analysis, and the results were published in many papers [5,7,8,[20][21][22]. Both theoretical and experimental methods for locomotion study were developed.…”

“…This is due to the fact that such a movement should occur both in the sagittal and frontal planes. The kinematics of such a motion is quite complicated, so the mathematical modeling of the spatial motion of two-legged robots is presented only in several works due to considerable difficulties [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]21]. The mathematical description of the slow (quasi-static) gait of a human in an exoskeleton, according to our analysis, is not present anywhere.…”

“…That's why it is a very significant problem. There are a great amount of papers concerning bipedal gait [2,3,6,7,[12][13][14][15][16]22]. However, in the majority of cases the gait is considered in a single sagittal plane, thus limiting the application sphere of the results obtained for exoskeleton applications.…”

“…That's why the locomotion modeling should be considered in respect to the spatial kinematics, since the motion takes place both in the sagittal and frontal planes. This approach to the locomotion modeling appears only in some papers [1,3,7,13,15,18,21].…”

Erratum to: Guidelines for tilt measurements realized by MEMS accelerometers

“…4 Still another example of devices of this kind, which have emerged quite recently, are exoskeleton robots presented e.g.,. 5,6 In the case of such devices, two crucial aspects of using a single accelerometer are its smaller overall dimensions and lower power consumption, compare to the other abovementioned MEMS systems. Nevertheless, to ensure a satisfactory accuracy remains a challenge.…”