With the aging of the population in the United States, an increasing number of individuals suffer from mobility challenges. For such individuals, the difficulty of standing up from a seated position is a major barrier for their daily physical activities. In the paper, a novel assistive device, namely Semi-Wearable Sit-to-Stand Assist (SW-SiStA), is presented, which provides effective lower-limb assistance to overcome such difficulty for the mobility-challenged individuals. Unlike traditional exoskeletons, the SW-SiStA can be easily detached after the completion of the sit-to-stand process, and thus will not cause additional burden to the user during the subsequent ambulation.
My Contribution to this project includes:
1. Designed and fabricated several robotic powered knee orthoses using electric motor/pneumatic systems to generate desired assistive torque.
2. Create drawing packages and instructions for proper manufacturing and assembly of designs.
3. Conducted preliminary benchtop testing of the orthosis controller using Arduino which supports C/C++ programming languages.
Experimental setup of the SW-SiStA device testing.
The configuration of the pneumatic actuation system in the SW-SiStA.
Knee extensor electromyography (EMG) activity during sit-to-stand motion between conditions.
Joint kinematic and kinetic results between two conditions.
New Version of STS Device (Completely Portable)
STS Gas Spring Version
STS Electric Car Jack Version
Experimental setup of the SW-SiStA device testing
