Research Of Lower-Limb Exoskeleton Walking Rehabilitation Robot

Rehabilitation robot is a wearable mechanical device which can protect the operator, support the body and help the operator to walk.In this paper, the paraplegia caused by spinal cord injury have been studied, make definite of the missions and goals of the lower extremity exoskeleton. Making use of lower extremity exoskeleton robot to help patients get rid of a wheelchair to stand and walk again, which can help paraplegics be more self-reliant in their daily lives and also restore patients'some muscle function.In the course of the study, after understanding the characteristics of paraplegia after spinal cord injury, including the performance of lower limb, abnormal movement patterns and motor function recovery patterns. Then, the paper learned the common movement treatment after paraplegia. On this basis, it analyzed the structure and kinematics of human lower-limb. Combined with man-machine system design requirements, we develop the design proposal of lower limb exoskeleton robot, which assisted hip, knee, ankle joints move at the same time. According to this scheme, the paper designed the mechanical structure of the lower extremity exoskeleton robot. The robot consist exoskeleton and crutch module, which were driven by the elastic actuator. Each leg of the exoskeleton has three degrees of freedom, namely the hip flexion / extension, knee flexion / extension, ankle plantar flexion / dorsiflexion, take the advantage of the indispensable DOFs to drive the robot, which can reduce the complexity of the structure and improve the efficiency of the device. The former two was driven by the actuator. The actuator is based on ball screw which consist the two pairs of compression springs, this can be an effective way to achieve to reduce the vibration and simulated muscle action during joint movement. The later movement came from one pair of pull spring, which can reduce the impact energy from the ground. The crutches module is not only the control switch of the exoskeleton robot, but also can balance the center gravity of the patients when walking. The crutch module is independent with the exoskeleton but connect with the exoskeleton in electrical. By the way of collecting contact information between crutches and the ground, we can control the knee and hip flexion and extension, thus helping patients to achieve step. Due to the problem of the robot model,I have proposed some recommendations for the follow-up researcher.