Abstract
Soft materials show numerous advantages compared to rigid ones in exosuit devices. We present the design of a soft wearable elbow assistance device with flexion and extension actuations. Commercially available butyl rubber tubes have been used as a pneumatic actuator. Tubes are enveloped by a lightweight polyester fabric to eliminate a non-homogeneous expansion. The surrounding fabric in turn is mounted on a clothes fabric as zigzag paths. The exosuit is lightweight, shock resistant, simple to manufacture, and low cost. The subjective experiments show a reduction average of 48% in the Rectified & integrated raw electromyography signal of the brachialis muscle during a rhythmic flexion/extension sequence while lifting weights (3 and 5 [kg]). Results indicate a significant assistance with respect to the other existing soft elbow exosuits.
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The paper experiments data. https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/informatik/KI/edu/robotik/videos/werob2018data.zip
The paper descriptive video. https://youtu.be/-BOO6PC-9Pc
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Nassour, J., Vaghani, S., Hamker, F.H. (2019). Design of Soft Exosuit for Elbow Assistance Using Butyl Rubber Tubes and Textile. In: Carrozza, M., Micera, S., Pons, J. (eds) Wearable Robotics: Challenges and Trends. WeRob 2018. Biosystems & Biorobotics, vol 22. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01887-0_81
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-01887-0_81
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