Design a partial gravity-balanced upper limb exoskeleton

• Main Author: Tan, Jolyn Chik Ying
• Other Authors: Low Kin Huat
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/68420
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

There are an increasing number of stroke patients in Singapore which may lead to shortage of therapists as stroke rehabilitation is crucial for the stroke patients to regain their basic ability to perform daily activities. Upper limb exoskeleton was considered as an ideal rehabilitation device without the presence of a therapist. Many researches have concluded that active upper limb exoskeleton that is controlled by actuator system would exert torque on the joints when the patients are wearing the exoskeleton. The unwanted torques added to their joints have caused the patients to have difficulties when doing motions like arm flexion, extension, adduction, abduction and so on. Thus, a passive upper limb exoskeleton that consists of tension springs cable-pulley system is designed to counter the undesirable torques caused by the motors of the active exoskeleton. The passive device is integrated together with the active upper limb exoskeleton. This report covers the static balance theory, study of active upper-limb exoskeleton and follow by studies of several balancing methods done by researchers. Design of the passive device and assembly are also presented in this report. Experiment findings to validate the effectiveness of the design are presented. These findings have significant implications for the future improvements of the passive upper limb exoskeleton.