• CN: 11-2187/TH
  • ISSN: 0577-6686

Journal of Mechanical Engineering ›› 2023, Vol. 59 ›› Issue (11): 43-53.doi: 10.3901/JME.2023.11.043

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Multi-motion Compound Passive Lower Limb Exoskeleton Design and Its Intelligent Interaction Evaluation

CAO Enguo, XU Qi, SHEN Fengcen, HU Weifeng   

  1. School of Design, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122
  • Received:2021-11-18 Revised:2022-09-16 Online:2023-06-05 Published:2023-07-19

Abstract: At present, the motion posture assisted by most of passive exoskeletons is single posture, and the design of multi-motion composite passive exoskeleton can expand the applicability of this type of equipment. By analyzing the geometric law of human body posture changes under different motion states, elastic elements are used to store the human body's kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy loss during the energy storage phase, and the energy is released in the assist phase to achieve sports assistance, so as to carry out the prototype design of the exoskeleton product, and real-time monitor of human body dynamics and muscle activity data through an intelligent sensor system. The D-H parameter model is established, and the compatibility of man-machine of the exoskeleton is analyzed. The exoskeleton wearing experiment was performed on 6 subjects, combined with dynamics and electromyography data analysis, to evaluate the effectiveness of the exoskeleton. The analysis of human-machine compatibility shows that the walking space of the exoskeleton in the sagittal plane can cover the motion trajectory of the human ankle joint. The dynamics simulation results show that after wearing the exoskeleton, the total work done by the joints is reduced by 20.17% and 19.49% during walking and squatting movements, respectively. The surface electromyography results show that after wearing the exoskeleton, the main muscles contribution rate has a certain degree of change, and the overall score is significantly reduced. Through the mobile intelligent interactive system, the user can understand the body motion state and control the assistance, and then acquire a better user experience. The intelligent human-computer interaction experiment verifies the effectiveness of the exoskeleton prototype for human motion assistance, and provides an example reference for research in related fields.

Key words: prototype design, lower limb exoskeleton, intelligent interaction, dynamic simulation, surface electromyography

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