Bio-inspired upper limb soft exoskeleton to reduce stroke-induced complications

Stroke has become the leading cause of disability and the second-leading cause of mortality worldwide. Dyskinesia complications are the major reason of these high death and disability rates. As a tool for rapid motion function recovery in stroke patients, exoskeleton robots can reduce complications and thereby decrease stroke mortality rates. However, existing exoskeleton robots interfere with the wearer ’s natural motion and damage joints and muscles due to poor human-machine coupling. In this paper, a novel ergonomic soft bionic exoskeleton robot with 7  degrees of freedom was proposed to address these problems based on the principles of functional anatomy and sports biomechanics. First, the human motion system was analysed according to the functional anatomy, and the muscles were modelled as tension lines. Second, a soft bionic robot was established based on the musculoskeletal tension line model. Third, a robot control method mimicking human muscle control principles was propo...
Source: Bioinspiration and Biomimetics - Category: Science Authors: Source Type: research