Fabrication of Powered Knee Exoskeleton

Chong, Kah Loong (2018) Fabrication of Powered Knee Exoskeleton. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

Lower Extremities Exoskeleton is a wearable device used to improve the strength of lower limbs of users, and its common applications are in medical, military, and construction sector. The weakness in knee of elderly people comes from reduced physical activities in daily life such as walking and jogging, mainly due to reduced mass and muscle strength in lower limbs. This causes elderly people to face difficulties in climbing stairs. Previously, Semi-Powered Knee Exoskeleton (SPoKE) was developed to assist elderly people to climb stairs. To further improve, a new Lower Extremities Exoskeleton (LEE) must have reduced cost and innovate to stay competitive. The objective of this project is to develop a LEE with cost reduction and able to assist elderly people in climbing stairs, and also to integrate LEE with IoT technology. TRIZ methodology is used to resolve the problems in SPoKE, and computer-aided design software Solidworks is used to produce engineering drawing, and additive and subtractive manufacturing is used to manufacture exoskeleton. Inventive Principles suggested by TRIZ tools (EC and PC) suggested that different part of exoskeleton can be 3D printed and frame can be manufactured by using Aluminium Alloy. Also TESE provide us a direction that exoskeleton should integrate with new emerging 2nd stage system, therefore Feature Transfer is used to transfer the useful function of other exoskeleton in market to newly designed exoskeleton. Using the TRIZ tool trimming to eliminate torsion spring and flexible shaft, the result is that Powered Knee Exoskeleton (KNEXT) is developed. KNEXT also consists of customized Arduino. The fabrication process enable KNEXT to have a cost reduction of 30.11 % with additional useful features.