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Shock Absorber Mechanism Based on an SMA Spring for Lightweight Exoskeleton Applications

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Abstract

Wearable exoskeletons have generally been designed to enhance user strength or to reduce user fatigue. Two areas that have often been overlooked are that exoskeletons should increase user safety and have increased durability for use in extreme environments. In this paper, we developed an SMA spring-based shock absorption module for an exoskeleton or a quadruped walking robot, which can provide increased protection to the user during high-impact events in an extreme environment. We analyzed the impact force during the collision between the module and the ground based on impulse and momentum theories. The shock absorber module can be reused by exploiting the inherent shape memory characteristics of the SMA spring after every use. We confirmed that the spring constant of the SMA spring and the maximum allowable length affect the impulse reduction, and the results showed that the latter has a greater influence on impulse reduction.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Incheon National University Research Grant in 2016.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Thermal and Fluids Science, Institute for Computational Science, Faculty of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

    Namkeun Kim & Yeongjin Kim

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Incheon National University, 8-204, 119 Academy-ro, Yeonsu-gu, Incheon, Korea

    Seungjun Lee, Sanghee Lee, Namkeun Kim, Tea-Sung Jun & Yeongjin Kim

  3. Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Sookmyung Women’s University, Cheongpa-ro 47-gil 100, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, 140-742, Korea

    Youngjin Na

  4. Robotics R&BD Group, Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, 143 Hanggaul-ro, Sangnok-gu, Ansan-si, Gyeonggi-do, 15588, Korea

    Bummo Ahn

  5. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea

    Hoeryong Jung

  6. Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, New Territories, Hong Kong

    Shing Shin Cheng

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  1. Seungjun Lee
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  2. Sanghee Lee
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Correspondence to Yeongjin Kim.

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Lee, S., Lee, S., Na, Y. et al. Shock Absorber Mechanism Based on an SMA Spring for Lightweight Exoskeleton Applications. Int. J. Precis. Eng. Manuf. 20, 1533–1541 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12541-019-00169-y

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