Session: MR-06-01 - Medical and Rehabilitation Robotics

Paper Number: 91274

91274 - Design, Kinematics, and Control of a Modular Robotic Suit as an Exercise System to Prevent Muscle Atrophy of Astronauts During Long-Duration Space Missions 

Muscle atrophy is a significant health issue for astronauts during long-duration space missions. Existing exercise equipment designed for use on spacecraft are an important part of mitigation strategies, but have some limitations. This paper presents a simple and compact modular robotic suit to overcome some of these limitations. Design rationale, kinematic modeling of the robot, control strategies for exercise, and prototyping of the modular robotic suit (MORS) are described.

The main objective of this research is creating a new resistive exercise device to overcome the weaknesses of the existing exercise devices such as ARED and MED-2. In this paper, we present development of a wearable type of resistive exercise device called a Modular Robotic Suit (MORS) to mitigate muscle atrophy. MORS is a modular robot which attaches directly to the body, spanning various joints of the musculoskeletal system and providing resistance against the astronaut’s motion. This wearable type of resistive exercise device releases the astronauts from the typical space and time restrictions of highly scheduled on-station exercise. It is smaller and lighter than ARED and MED-2, and the robot is attached to the astronauts as they perform their routine activities, without the need to be mounted over a VISS. Therefore, the MORS can be an efficient and practical substitute for existing exercise devices to prevent muscle atrophy for astronauts during long-duration space missions in the future.

This paper presents a first attempt to apply principles of wearable modular robots to create a resistive exercise robot to mitigate muscle atrophy for astronauts in long-duration space missions. In the following sections, design rationale, kinematic modeling, resistive force control and early prototyping efforts are described.

Presenting Author: Carl Nelson University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Presenting Author Biography: Dr. Nelson joined the faculty of the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Univeristy of Nebraska-Lincoln(UNL) in 2005. Prior to coming to UNL, he attended Purdue University, where he received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship and completed his MSME and PhD degrees. Dr. Nelson is a member of the ASME, and his teaching experience includes courses in flight science at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Talented Youth and algebra at Ivy Tech State College of Indiana.

Authors:

Jay Chae University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Carl Nelson University of Nebraska-Lincoln
José Baca Texas A&M Corpus Christi
Mukul Mukherjee University of Nebraska - Omaha