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

Paper Number: 89735

89735 - Design of a Soft Cable-Driven Active Leg Exoskeleton (SC-ALEX) With Continuous Assistive Control 

This work introduces a Soft Cable-driven Active leg Exoskeleton (SC-ALEX), a fabric-based exoskeleton, that can be adapted to continuously assist the user in different functional tasks. In the literature, soft exosuit designs typically provide sagittal and intermittent force assistance. The SC-ALEX improves upon this state-of-the-art by using reconfigurable 3D-printed modules that can apply forces in any direction. The exoskeleton can be used in tandem with a closed-loop controller to provide assistance ad continuous tracking while maintaining a soft. low-profile and ergonomic design. As the method of constructing the SC-ALEX is also novel, we evaluate several candidates for their mechanical characteristics for the final design. We determine the best methodology for assembly for a final design. We compare the SC-ALEX  to the Cable-driven Active Leg Exoskeleton (C-ALEX), the latter has been used for studies in gait adaptation in healthy and post-stroke individuals. The SC-ALEX had significantly lower tension errors ($p =0.021$), lower cable-allowable bandwidth ($p =0.020$), and smaller maximum joint flexion in the user (hip $p =0.048$, knee $p =0.020$), when compared with C-ALEX. We demonstrate the ability of soft exoskeletons to be used with assistive controllers and demonstrate the trade-offs with an established system that has shown efficacy with healthy and post-stroke individuals.

Presenting Author: Rand Hidayah Columbia University

Presenting Author Biography: Dr Rand Hidayah is a Robotics Engineer who recently graduated from Columbia University.

Authors:

Rand Hidayah Columbia University
Mohit Relhan Columbia Unviersity
Kalpana Ganeshan Columbia University
Winnie Chan Columbia University
Sunil Agrawal Columbia University