AsianScientist (Nov. 7, 2016) – Researchers in China and Denmark have designed a lower-limb wearable robot exoskeleton that features natural knee movement, greatly improving patient comfort and their willingness to wear it for gait rehab. Their design was published in Review of Scientific Instruments.
Stroke and spinal cord injury patients often require gait rehabilitation to regain the ability to walk or to help strengthen their muscles. Wearable robot-assisted training is quickly emerging as a method that helps improve this rehab process, but exoskeleton robots aren’t new—they’ve been studied extensively and many designs have focused on lower limbs.
Here, researchers from Beihang University and Aalborg University have developed a robotic exoskeleton that is intended to help stroke patients strengthen their physical fitness, aid the rehabilitation training of paralyzed patients, or to assist those who need help performing daily activities. The knee joint’s motion is actuated by several skeletal muscles along its articular surfaces, and its center of rotation moves. It is the first known use of a parallel mechanism at the knee joint to imitate skeletal muscles.
“Our new design features a parallel knee joint to improve the bio-imitability and adaptability of the exoskeleton,” explained Dr. Chen Weihai, a professor at Beihang University’s School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering.
The article can be found at: Lyu et al. (2016) Design of a Biologically Inspired Lower Limb Exoskeleton for Human Gait Rehabilitation.
———
Source: American Institute of Physics; Photo: Shutterstock.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
