Self-adjusting, Isostatic Exoskeleton for The Human Knee Joint

Viet Anh Dung Cai (1) , Philippe Bidaud (1, 2) , Vincent Hayward (1) , Florian Gosselin (3) , Eric Desailly (4)

1 ISIR - Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique
2 SYROCO - Systèmes robotiques Conception et Commande
3 LIST (CEA) - Laboratoire d'Intégration des Systèmes et des Technologies
4 Fondation Ellen Poidatz

A knee-joint exoskeleton design that can apply programmable torques to the articulation and that self-adjusts to its physiological movements is described. Self-adjustment means that the articular torque is automatically produced around the rotational axis of the joint. The requirements are first discussed and the conditions under which the system tracks the spatial relative movements of the limbs are given. If these conditions are met, the torque applied to the joint takes into account the possible relative movements of the limbs without introducing constraints. A prototype was built to demonstrate the applicability of these principles and preliminary tests were carried out to validate the design.

Mots clés: Exoskeleton; self-adjustement; active rehabilitation

Domaines: Robotique [cs.RO]

Viet Anh Dung Cai, Philippe Bidaud, Vincent Hayward, Florian Gosselin, Eric Desailly. Self-adjusting, Isostatic Exoskeleton for The Human Knee Joint. 33rd Annual International Conference of the IEEE EMBS, Aug 2011, Boston, United States. pp.612-619. ⟨hal-00656450⟩