Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A (대한기계학회논문집A)

The Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers (대한기계학회)
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Development of Elbow Wearable Robot for Elderly Workers

고령층 근로자들을 위한 팔꿈치 착용형 로봇의 개발

  • Lee, Seok-Hoon (Dept. of Mechanical System Design Engineering, Seoul Nat'l Univ. of Science and Technology) ;
  • Lee, Si-Haeng (Dept. of Mechanical System Design Engineering, Seoul Nat'l Univ. of Science and Technology) ;
  • Kim, Jung-Yup (Dept. of Mechanical System Design Engineering, Seoul Nat'l Univ. of Science and Technology)
  • 이석훈 (서울과학기술대학교 기계시스템디자인공학과) ;
  • 이시행 (서울과학기술대학교 기계시스템디자인공학과) ;
  • 김정엽 (서울과학기술대학교 기계시스템디자인공학과)
  • Received : 2014.09.05
  • Accepted : 2015.04.15
  • Published : 2015.06.01
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Abstract

This paper describes the development of a wearable robot to assist the elbow muscle for use by elderly workers in aging societies. Various previously developed wearable robots have drawbacks in terms of their price, portability, and slow recognition of the wearer's intention. In this paper, emphasis is placed on the following features to minimize these drawbacks. The first feature is that an actuator is attached only at the elbow joint that withstands the highest moment during arm motion to reduce the weight, volume, and price of the robot and increase its practicality. The second is that operation of the wearable robot is divided into two modes, a tracking mode and a muscle strengthening mode, and the robot can automatically switch between these modes by analyzing the wearer's intention through the brachial muscle strength measuring device developed in this study. The assistive performance of the developed wearable robot is experimentally verified by motion tracking experiments without an external load and muscle strengthening experiments with an external load. During the muscle strengthening experiments, the power of the muscle of the upper arm is measured by a commercial electromyography (EMG) sensor. Motion tracking performance at a speed of $120^{\circ}/s$ and muscle assistance of over 60 % were obtained using our robot.

본 논문은 고령화되는 현대 사회에서 고령층 근로자들의 팔꿈치 근력 보조를 위한 웨어러블 로봇의 개발에 대해서 서술하였다. 기존에 연구 개발된 다양한 웨어러블 로봇들은 착용자가 사용하기에 가격, 휴대성 측면 뿐만 아니라 느린 착용자 의도 파악에 단점들이 있어왔다. 본 논문에서는 이러한 문제들을 최소화하기 위해 다음과 같은 특징을 강조하였다. 첫째, 양팔 작업 시 가장 많은 모멘트를 받는 팔꿈치 관절에만 구동기를 부착하여 무게와 부피 및 가격을 줄이고 실용성을 높였다. 둘째, 웨어러블 로봇의 작동을 추종 모드와 근력 증강 모드로 나누고, 본 연구에서 개발한 상박 근력 측정 장치로부터 착용자의 의지를 실시간 파악하여 모드가 자동적으로 전환 될 수 있도록 하였다. 이로부터 빠른 착용자 의도 파악과 동작 전환이 가능하도록 하였다. 개발된 로봇을 이용하여 무 부하 시 착용자의 모션 추종 성능을 측정하고, 부하 시 EMG (Electromyography) 센서로부터 상박의 근력을 측정함으로써 착용자의 근력 보조 성능을 실험적으로 입증하였다. 결과적으로, 초당 120 도의 모션 추종 성능과 60% 이상의 근력 보조 성능을 얻을 수 있었다.

Keywords

References

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