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Design of Soft Exosuit for Elbow Assistance Using Butyl Rubber Tubes and Textile

Conference paper
First Online:
Part of the Biosystems & Biorobotics book series (BIOSYSROB, volume 22)

Abstract

Soft materials show numerous advantages compared to rigid ones in exosuit devices. We present the design of a soft wearable elbow assistance device with flexion and extension actuations. Commercially available butyl rubber tubes have been used as a pneumatic actuator. Tubes are enveloped by a lightweight polyester fabric to eliminate a non-homogeneous expansion. The surrounding fabric in turn is mounted on a clothes fabric as zigzag paths. The exosuit is lightweight, shock resistant, simple to manufacture, and low cost. The subjective experiments show a reduction average of 48% in the Rectified & integrated raw electromyography signal of the brachialis muscle during a rhythmic flexion/extension sequence while lifting weights (3 and 5 [kg]). Results indicate a significant assistance with respect to the other existing soft elbow exosuits.

Keywords

Exosuit Butyl Rubber Tubing Soft Exosuit Actuator Extension Brachialis Muscle 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Artificial Intelligence Lab, Computer ScienceChemnitz University of TechnologyChemnitzGermany

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