EXOSKELETON FOR FORTHCOMING

CENTURY
Karthik Raj K
Department of Mechatronics
Sri Krishna College of Engineering and Technology,
Coimbatore
Paper Presented at:
Gyanith Avishkar
NIT Karaikal
17/03/2018
ABSTRACT:
It is a fantastic time for the field of robotic
exoskeletons. The exoskeletons are going to bring a
revolutionary change in military as well as in medical field.
My idea on exoskeleton is to assist the human locomotion
which is comprised of multiple actuators and motor driving
systems. This exoskeleton is used to help the disable
persons to walk, move their hand and help the paralyzed
people to grab the objects. This can be achieved by
INTENSION SENSING METHOD. From this method the
Force, Motion, Muscle Hardness is sensed and the signals
will be sent to the processor and the output from the
processor will actuate the required motion. The

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Exoskeleton will contribute in many ways to the future
benefit of humankind, and the future is not that distant.

Index Terms: Exoskeleton, Actuators, Motor driving

system, Intension sensing method.

INTRODUCTION:
USE OF EXOSKELETON
The term exoskeleton coming from the Greek words
“exo” = outer and “skeletos” = skeleton, is an external
structure that supports and protects an animal’s/human’s
body, in contrast to the internal skeleton. Statistically, one
in six people in the world will have a stroke at some time,
or develop some debilitating bone condition. Most strokes
are caused by an interruption of the blood supply to part of
the brain. Each year, as many as 500,000 individuals
experience a spinal cord injury(SCI) and 15 million suffer
from stroke.
It is very important for stroke patients to move the
parts of the body that have been affected to restore and
retrain movement. This rehabilitation is very important for
the patient and is particularly so for the achievement of full
movement. This not only helps to maintain muscle tension
and strength, and increase durability, but also promotes
blood circulation. Rehabilitation systems have been
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extensively studied for effective restoration and training of
muscle activity in the arm or hand. The degree of upper
limb rehabilitation is also used in clinical tests. However, a
finger exoskeleton is more difficult to design than one for
the arm because it requires many more degrees of
freedom (DOF) of motion and this involves small moving
parts.
The design of a typical finger mechanism is
complicated, has involved control requirements, and is
usually very expensive. To reduce the cost and simplify the
fabrication and operation, many people working on the
problem began to use under actuated mechanisms in the
design of a robot finger.

NEED OF EXOSKELETON

The elderly population in our society is increasing and

hence societal issues related to ageing problems are also
increasing. One of the key issues facing elderly persons
relates to personal mobility which is essential for
independence and good quality of life. With advances in
technology, conventional methods like walkers, crutches
and wheel chairs for providing mobility are being overtaken
by wearable robots, commonly known as exoskeletons.
This technology represents the future of mobility solutions
for the elderly. Many research institutes and commercial
undertakings are putting efforts to come up with a general
purpose exoskeleton able to meet the needs but we are
still far from having an effective and affordable solution
developed to the masses. The paper discusses the
challenges that need to be addressed and the future
trends in the exoskeleton domain
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The elderly population in our society is increasing and
hence societal issues related to ageing problems are also
increasing. One of the key issues facing elderly persons
relates to personal mobility which is essential for
independence and good quality of life. With advances in
technology, conventional methods like walkers and wheel
chairs for providing mobility are being overtaken by
wearable robots, commonly known as exoskeletons.

The major problems faced by elderly people are:

o inability to sit, stand, perform transfers and to walk,
o need for personal assistance at home,
o risk losing independence,
o reduced quality of life.

To avoid the limitations of the heavy and bulky

exoskeleton, the design of exoskeleton used a 3D printer
to fabricate a prototype. Thus, the exoskeleton is
affordable and competes with conventional therapy costs.
In continuous passive motion, a patient usually cannot
control the movement through conscious effort. Therefore,
we used auto speech recognition to help patients control
rehabilitation efforts themselves. A specific key word was
used to start the robot and a carefully chosen stepper
motor was used to power the mechanism. This technology
represents the future of mobility solutions for the elderly.

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 ROBOTIC EXOSKELETON HAND
We are currently working on a project on
Exoskeleton Hand. This exoskeleton hand is used to
help the paralyzed people to move their fingers to
grab the objects.

CLASSIFICATION OF EXOSKELETON
HAND:
 Actuator type
 Purpose
 Intention sensing method
 Power transmission

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ACTUATOR TECHNOLOGIES

• Conventional exoskeleton actuators

1. Electric motor: easily available, reliable and
easy to control/larger volume and weight.
2. Pneumatic actuator: flexibility, fast
responsibility/bulky and noisy.

• Smart material actuators

1. Shape memory alloy (SMA): high power-to-
weight ratio/nonlinearity.
2. Electro active polymer (EAP): light weight,
flexibility and low power consumption/Slow
response and low actuation force.

• Intention sensing methods

1. Force Sensing
2. Motion Sensing
3. Surface Electromyography (SEMG)
4. Muscle Hardness
5. Mechanomyogram (MMG)
6. Photoplethysmography (PPG) at Fingernail
7. Finger-pad Deformation
8. Pressure Pattern(Force Myography, FMG)

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Major advantages of exoskeletons:
o Prevent muscle atrophy by daily use and enhance
recovery in case of damage.

o Increase autonomy of persons by allowing them to

do things independently.

o Improve the psychological state of the user.

o Adapt to all environments for normal daily motions

such as walking and stair climbing.

o Reduce the energy required to move the primary

joints (knee/hip/ankle) as the load is taken by the
exoskeleton

o Target specific joints for rehabilitation purpose.

References

1)Burgar, C.G.; Lum, P.S.; Shor, P.C.; Machiel Van Der

Loos, H.F. Development of robots for rehabilitation
therapy, the Palo Alto VA/Stanford’s experience. J.
Rehabil. Res. Dev. 2000, 37, 663–673.

2)Li, J.; Wang, S.; Wang, J.; Zheng, R.; Zhang, Y.; Chen,
Z. Development of a hand exoskeleton system for
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 index finger rehabilitation. Chin. J. Mech. Eng. 2011,
25, 223–233.

3)Heo, P.; Gu, M.G.; Lee, S.; Rhee, K.; Kim, J. Current
hand exoskeleton technologies for rehabilitation and
assistive engineering. Int. J. Precis. Eng. Manuf. 2012,
13, 807–824.

4)Lihua Gui, Zhiyong Yang, Xiuxia Yang, Wenjin Gu,

Yuanshan Zhang, “Design and control technique
research of exoskeleton suit”, International Conference
on Automation and Logistics, pp. 541-546, 2007.

5)Eksobionics official Website

URL:http://www.eksobionics.com/.

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