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Toward Human-Powered Lower Limb Exoskeletons: A Review

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Harmony Search and Nature Inspired Optimization Algorithms

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 741))

Abstract

Most of the commercially available exoskeletons use rechargeable Li-ion batteries, which require frequent charging. The battery charging becomes a big bottleneck, when the person, wearing the exoskeleton, needs to go for a week trip on trekking or mountaineering. In order to make batteries more reliable and portable, an alternative energy source can be a good option. Human-powered devices are useful as an emergency electric power source, during natural disaster, war, or civil disturbance make regular power supplies unavailable. These devices have also been treated as an economical and environment-friendly option for use in underdeveloped countries, where batteries may be expensive and main power supply is unreliable or sometimes unavailable. Some of the environmental-energy-producing sources are piezoelectric devices, vibrational sources, RF transmitters, etc., where each method produces different amount of electricity. Some of these sources do not produce enough energy to charge an exoskeleton’s battery. Therefore, in this article, an effort has been made to review the human-powered products in order to develop a mechanism that can be used for charging the battery of exoskeletons. Human power is defined as the use of human work for energy generation. The energy is harvested from the user’s daily actions (walking, breathing, body heat, blood pressure, finger motion, etc.). This paper compares the various conventional and alternative methods to charge lower limb exoskeletons to be used for elderly people.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology, Patiala, 147004, India

    Ashish Singla, Saurav Dhand & Ashwin Dhawad

  2. Innovative Technology and Science Limited (InnoTecUK), Cambridge, CB21 6DR, UK

    Gurvinder S. Virk

Authors
  1. Ashish Singla
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  2. Saurav Dhand
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  3. Ashwin Dhawad
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  4. Gurvinder S. Virk
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ashish Singla .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering and Technology, BML Munjal University, Gurgaon, Haryana, India

    Neha Yadav

  2. Department of Sciences and Humanities, National Institute of Technology, Srinagar, Uttarakhand, India

    Anupam Yadav

  3. Department of Mathematics, South Asian University, New Delhi, India

    Jagdish Chand Bansal

  4. Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, India

    Kusum Deep

  5. School of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Joong Hoon Kim

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Singla, A., Dhand, S., Dhawad, A., Virk, G.S. (2019). Toward Human-Powered Lower Limb Exoskeletons: A Review. In: Yadav, N., Yadav, A., Bansal, J., Deep, K., Kim, J. (eds) Harmony Search and Nature Inspired Optimization Algorithms. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 741. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0761-4_75

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