Starting date: April the 20th 2019
Duration: 20 months

 
Project category

OPTION 2: propose a benchmarking device, composed of sensors and/or actuators, that can be applied indistinctly to different benchmarking scenarios.

 
Application

Wearable robots

 
Outcome
 
Team:

COORDINATOR:

  • Università degli Studi di Brescia (Italy)

Partner 2:

  • Università degli Studi di Trento (Italy)

Partner 3:

  • Università degli Studi di Genova (Italy)
Abstract
Most wearable robots for locomotion require the usage of crutches. This changes the gait patterns and the internal forces and moments acting on the articulations of the exoskeleton pilot. Measuring articulations’ reactions is critical to correctly compare robotic solutions, since repetitive overloading could lead to pain and chronic pathologies.
To properly assess the joints’ reaction forces while performing the benchmarking scenarios we require:
 
  • a biomechanical model of pilot and exoskeleton
  • mass and inertial data of both
  • kinematic data
  • force data, both at the feet and on the crutches
All these information could be obtained by using the measurement framework we propose, composed by three different systems, easily integrated in the benchmark environment:
 
  1. instrumented crutches, equipped with a wireless system able to measure the load applied by the user on each crutch, the crutch orientation, and the position of the foot, to detect the gait phases
  2. a volume scanning system, based on portable TOF cameras, to measure the body segments centre of mass, inertia and mass using the volumetric information acquired;
  3. the implementation of a biomechanical model, to compute inverse dynamic analysis using the measured data, and the uncertainty associated with the joints’ reaction forces.
These devices will allow the assessment of metrics related to the upper limbs, such as peak joints’ forces, and their uncertainty, needed to compare exoskeletons’ performances.