Piezoelectric Knee Brace

Andy Continisio, Liem Nguyen, Anthony Worthington Advisor: Dr. Robert Chang, Ph.D
Department of Mechanical Engineering | Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey, United States of America

INTRODUCTION
A piezoelectric knee brace is an orthotic device designed to support the human knee while simultaneously providing electro-stimulation therapy to the surrounding muscles and ligaments. The device will utilize electricity generated from human movement through the use of piezoelectric materials integrated into the device. The therapeutic benefits of the device are two-fold: 1) maintain proper knee alignment to aid in rehabilitation, and 2) pain management and muscle activation through the electrostimulation treatment. This type of all in one device will be the first of its kind.

APPROACH
During the preliminary design phase, there were several things to consider, most importantly the biomechanics of the knee, the capabilities of piezoelectrics, and the design configuration that would optimize energy harvesting. To promote agile improvements, 3D printing was used to produce the majority of hardware components. This allowed for faster testing and improvements upon the configuration. The device was modeled in SolidWorks, with the exploded assembly shown below. The design consists of a fixed gear mounted coaxially with the axis of the knee. A smaller, driven gear is coupled with a plucking mechanism that is centered around a ring of piezoelectric strips. The strips have a fixed end along the outer ring, allowing the free end to be agitated by the plucker. By gearing down the plucker, the piezoelectric strips are agitated at a higher rate and the loss of torque is negligible based on the amount needed to actuate the strips.

RESULTS
The first integration testing was conducted to ensure that the piezoelectric strips were working with the energy harvesting circuit. Initially, one full length strip was used. Subsequent tests used multiple strips or one strip at its design length. The final test used all five strips at their design length (35mm). LabVIEW was used to monitor the output from the EH-300.The results are shown in the table below.
Test Number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11* 4/14/14 4/9/14 Date PZT Type Quantity of PZT strips 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 3 4 5 Time to Discharge (seconds) Resistor in Circuit (Ohms) 1k 100 100 1k 100 100 100 1k 100 100 100 Rectifier (Y/N) N N N Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y

CONCLUSIONS
The team was capable of designing and building a prototype that harvests energy and can deliver a TENS pulsed output within the parameters specified. Below is a schematic of the full electrical diagramthe from piezoelectric energy harvester to the TENS output.

4/18/14

Full Length Full Length 35 mm Full Length Full Length Full Length Full Length Full Length Full Length Full Length 35mm

8 12 420 9 10-11 8 5 5 2.5 1-1.5 63

http://fitandstrongdads.com/simple-solutions-for-nasty-knee-pain/

OBJECTIVES
The purpose and main design goal for the device is to provide TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation) therapy. TENS is characterized by short electrical pulses that are used to stimulate the nerves and reduce muscular and joint pain. The parameters in the table below show the operating ranges for TENS therapy.
Category Current Voltage Pulse Duration Pulse Frequency Minimum .10 mA 10 V Maximum 10 mA 110 V

Table 3 Time to discharge represents the amount of time the strips were being plucked before the energy harvesting capacitor discharged a pulse into the battery. The end result of this testing implies that one minute of walking results in one charging pulse emitted.

While the device functioned as intended, the teams original maximum estimates on energy generation were not realized through the multiple experimental tests performed. Our most successful test would allow us to generate about 20 Joules in an hour of use, which is 16.67% of the maximum 120 Joules required. If the TENS unit were operated at its minimum requirements of .1 mA and 10 Volts, the device would generate 16.67 times the required amount of 1.2 Joules.

40 microseconds 250 microseconds 2 pulses per second 250 pulses per second

To harvest this energy, a basic energy harvesting circuit, the EH-300 from DigiKey, was used to charge two AA batteries. The harvesting circuit uses the piezoelectric generated energy to charge a capacitor. When the capacitor reaches a certain threshold, it discharges a pulse into the batteries. The energy harvester used, as well as its charging pulse are shown below. For the system testing, a servo controlled test fixture was built to roughly simulate the human leg. The device was attached to the fixture, and the servo, programmed with an Arduino Uno, would mimic the motion and speed of a human step. LabVIEW was again used to monitor the output of the EH-300. The results are shown below.

Table 1

Based on these parameters, in addition to the constraints imposed by the Senior Design Course as well as the design teams own research, the following product requirements were developed. Organized in the table below, design goals beyond the requirements were also established.

Key areas for improvement of the energy harvester are to increase the frequency of actuations of the piezoelectric material, as well as to increase the effective length and deflection of each piezoelectric strip. This can be completed by changing the width, thickness, and shim material of the piezoelectric material. The energy generation results show that the 141 mm piezoelectric strips are nearly twice as effective as the 25 mm length. Also, the gear ratio can be increased more to increase the amount of actuation of the energy generating strips. This will allow for higher voltages, current, and more cumulative energy generation. Alternative designs have been suggested by the team for future projects to create a lower profile design and increase the energy generating potential. This project has applications outside the medical field, as technology is prevalent in everyday life and the need to power small scale electronics is ever present. There are also military uses for such an energy harvesting device, as infantry are required to carry more equipment that require power. As piezoelectric technology improves, devices like this will become more successful. Bionicare - http://www.bionicare.com/ ExtremeCircuits - http://www.eeweb.com/extreme_circuits M Pozzi, et al, The Pizzicato Knee-Joint Energy Harvester: Characterization with Biomechanical Data and the Effect of Backpack Load, Smart Materials and Structures, Issue 21, 1-9, 2012

http://www.digikey.com/productdetail/en/EH300/1014-1193ND/2414469

Criteria Cost to Develop & Prototype

Requirement Less than $750

Design Goal Less than $500

Energy Capabilities

Device generates Device generates enough power to run enough power to run TENS delivery circuit for TENS delivery circuit for 20 minutes. (10 120 25 minutes at variable Joules) intensities. (300 Joules) Device width is less than 5cm. Device will work with at least one type of knee brace Device width is less than 2.5cm Device will work with two types of knee braces

In order to deliver the pulsed output needed for TENS therapy, a generic circuit was selected, from ExtremeCircuits.net. The circuit makes use of a 555 Timer Chip, which regulates the timing of the output. By using potentiometers in the circuit, the frequency and relative intensity of the pulses can be controlled by the user. The circuit schematic is shown below.

Each pulse took approximately 10 minutes to charge before it was discharged into the battery. This is in stark contrast to the results in Table 3 above. The last part of testing was to verify that the TENS delivery circuit was outputting pulses in the acceptable range for TENS therapy. Using LabVIEW, the pulsed output was monitored, with the test set up and results shown below.

REFERENCES

Size Knee Brace Compatibility

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
http://www.edaboard.com/thread204905.html

Table 2

Milan Simonovic George Wohlrab Biruk Gebre Logo Design: Robert Whipple

RESEARCH POSTER PRESENTATION DESIGN 2012

www.PosterPresentations.com