Exoskeletons are getting popular day by day due to their abilities in helping people. Exoskeletons can be used to help people gain motor senses through rehabilitation. It can also help healthy people to augment their abilities. These exoskeletons need to be strong yet light, so that the human body can support the exoskeleton, while the exoskeleton can support the activity that is being performed. This calls for under-actuated systems, which help in avoiding unnecessary mass due to additional actuators, while providing the same movement capabilities. This thesis describes in detail about two such under-actuated upper body exoskeletons which can be used for lifting loads. The design of such exoskeletons and novel control techniques for comfortable usage is discussed in detail. / Master of Science / Exoskeletons are assistive devices which can help people in several ways. An exoskeleton can help people who are affected with stroke by enabling them to walk through rehabilitation and physiotherapy. It can also help people to perform beyond their capacity in terms of physical activities. This could be to lift more load than possible, run faster than usual. This thesis describes the design and working two such exoskeletons which can be attached to the upper body. These exoskeletons can be used by people to lift loads which would require a lot of effort and muscle activity. The addition of these exoskeletons potentially reduce the muscle activity on the user and helps avoiding injuries in long term. Such exoskeletons have to be light weight so that they do not defeat the purpose of reducing muscle activity.
This problem is solved by using under-actuated systems, because a significant mass of the exoskeleton is taken by the actuators such as the motors. Using under-actuated systems help in lowering the mass of the exoskeleton, while still being able to perform the same kinds of motion. This thesis also talks about how these exoskeletons can be controlled such that the load is being lifted with minimal efforts, and being aware of the loads it is lifting to provide the correct amount of torque, above or below which can lead to the motor shooting up or down causing muscular discomfort and injuries in the arm.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/118433 |
| Date | 19 March 2024 |
| Creators | Sreehari, Seetharam Krishnapuram |
| Contributors | Mechanical Engineering, Asbeck, Alan Thomas, Leonessa, Alexander, Nussbaum, Maury A. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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