Evaluation of Robotic Ankle-Foot Orthosis with Different Actuators Using Simscape Multibody for Foot-Drop Patients
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3991/ijoe.v19i10.40375Keywords:
Robotic Ankle-Foot Orthosis, dynamic motion, Spring based SEA, Scissor actuator, Dorsiflexion and Plantar flexion motion.Abstract
Gait cycle plays a major role in human locomotion. Patients with neuromuscular problems are unable to walk normally. Foot drop causes difficulty in lifting the front part of the foot and affects the dorsiflexion (DF) and plantar flexion (PF) motion of the foot. Patient with foot drop must use ankle braces to achieve a normal gait. The existing ankle-foot orthosis (AFO) has its own limitations, as it does not produce adequate PF motion. To overcome this scenario, a study was conducted to analyse the two-degrees-of-freedom (DOF) motion of a robotic ankle foot orthosis (RAFO) with a spring-based series elastic actuator (SEA) and scissor actuator. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the two DOF of RAFO with two different actuators using simscape multibody. The RAFO with actuators were designed using Solidworks, and simulation was carried out using simscape multibody, to analyse the 2-DOF motion. The dynamic motion analysis was carried out using block libraries, bodies, joints, constraints, revolute joints, sensors and a proportional integral (PI) controller. From the simulation results, the total range of motion (ROM) 40° (PF angle of –25° and DF angle of 15°) is achieved by the proposed RAFO with different actuators. Further, based on the results, the input power consumption of spring-based SEA was found to be less than the scissor actuator. Similarly, torque and output power generation of the scissor actuator was found to be greater than spring-based SEA to achieve the normal human ROM. Hence, the designer can choose a hybrid actuator for foot-drop-disorder applications.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Gowrishankar G, Arockia Selvakumar
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The submitting author warrants that the submission is original and that she/he is the author of the submission together with the named co-authors; to the extend the submission incorporates text passages, figures, data or other material from the work of others, the submitting author has obtained any necessary permission.
Articles in this journal are published under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC-BY What does this mean?). This is to get more legal certainty about what readers can do with published articles, and thus a wider dissemination and archiving, which in turn makes publishing with this journal more valuable for you, the authors.
By submitting an article the author grants to this journal the non-exclusive right to publish it. The author retains the copyright and the publishing rights for his article without any restrictions.