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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Robot. AI
Sec. Soft Robotics
Volume 11 - 2024 |
doi: 10.3389/frobt.2024.1302862
This article is part of the Research Topic Smart Textiles for Fluid-Driven Soft Wearable Robotics View all 3 articles
Evaluation of fabric-based pneumatic actuator enclosure and anchoring configurations in a pediatric soft robotic exosuit
Provisionally accepted- University of California, Riverside, Riverside, California, United States
Soft robotics play an increasing role in the development of exosuits that assist, and in some cases enhance human motion. While most existing efforts have focused on the adult population, devices targeting infants are on the rise. This work investigated how different configurations pertaining to fabric-based pneumatic shoulder and elbow actuator embedding on the passive substrate of an exosuit for pediatric upper extremity motion assistance can affect key performance metrics.The configurations varied based on actuator anchoring points onto the substrate and the type of fabric used to fabricate the enclosures housing the actuators. Shoulder adduction/abduction and elbow flexion/extension were treated separately. Two different variants (for each case) of similar but distinct actuators were considered. The employed metrics were grouped into two categories; reachable workspace, which includes joint range of motion and end-effector path length; and motion smoothness, which includes end-effector path straightness index and jerk. The former category aimed to capture first-order terms (i.e. rotations and displacements) that capture overall gross motion, while the latter category aimed to shed light on differential terms that correlate with the quality of the attained motion. Extensive experimentation was conducted for each individual considered configuration, and statistical analyses were used to establish distinctive strengths, weaknesses, and trade-offs among those configurations. The main findings from experiments confirm that the performance of the actuators can be significantly impacted by variations in the anchoring and fabric properties of the enclosures while establishing interesting trade-offs. Specifically, the most appropriate anchoring point was not necessarily the same for all actuator variants. In addition, highly stretchable fabrics not only maintained but even enhanced actuator capabilities, in comparison to the less stretchable materials which turned out to hinder actuator performance. it The established trade-offs can serve as guiding principles for other researchers and practitioners developing upper extremity exosuits.
Keywords: Assistive device, Upper Extremity, wearable design, kinematics, soft robotics
Received: 27 Sep 2023; Accepted: 26 Aug 2024.
Copyright: © 2024 Sahin, Ayazi, Mucchiani, Dube, Karydis and Kokkoni. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Elena Kokkoni, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, 92521, California, United States
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