Browse > Article
http://dx.doi.org/10.3795/KSME-A.2015.39.6.617

Development of Elbow Wearable Robot for Elderly Workers  

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)
Publication Information
Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A / v.39, no.6, 2015 , pp. 617-624 More about this Journal
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.
Keywords
Wearable Robot; Power Assist; Elbow; Stretch Sensor;
Citations & Related Records
연도 인용수 순위
  • Reference
1 Harma, M. I. and Ilmarinen, J. E., 1999, "Towards the 24-hour Society - New Approaches for Aging Shift Workers?," Scand J Work Environ Health, 25(6, special issue), pp. 610-615.   DOI
2 Satoh, H., Kawabata, T. and Sankai, Y., 2009, "Bathing Care Assistance with Robot Suit HAL," IEEE International Conf. on Robotics and Biomimetics, pp. 498-503
3 Kazerooni, H., 1990, "Human-Robot Interaction via the Transfer of Power and Information Signals," IEEE Transactions on Systems and Cybernetics, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 450-463.   DOI   ScienceOn
4 Kazerooni, H. and Mahoney, S, L., 1991, "Dynamics and Control of Robotic Systems Worn by Humans," Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Sacramento, pp. 2399-2405.
5 Letier, P., Motard, E. and Verschueren, J. P., 2010, "EXOSTATION : Haptic Exoskeleton Based Control Station," IEEE International Conf. on Robotics and Automation, pp.1840-1845.
6 Tang, Z., Zhang, K., Sun, S., Gao, Z., Zhang, L. and Yang, Z., 2014, "An Upper-Limb Power-Assist Exoskeleton Using Proportional Myoelectric Control," Sensors, Vol. 14, pp. 6677-6694.   DOI   ScienceOn
7 Jang, H. Y., Han, C. S. and Han, J. S., 2010, "Research of Wearable Robot's Drive Method of Upper Arm," KSPE 2010 Spring Conference, pp. 953-954.
8 Choi, J. H., Oh, S. N., Chu, K. H., Son, Y. I. and Kim, K. I., 2011, "A Study on the Exoskeleton Robot Operations to Assist the Upper Limbs Power," KIEE 2011 Summer conference, pp. 1918-1919.
9 http://sizekorea.kats.go.kr/