Variable Stiffness Structure for limb attachment

Abstract

In robotic rehabilitation, the way of attaching the robotic device to the users' limb constitutes a crucial element of product quality, particularly for assuring good fitting, comfort, accuracy, usability, and safety. In this article, we present a new technological concept - 'Variable Stiffness Structure' - allowing for an improvement of these aspects in the 'robotic device to limb' - connection by offering a compound of materials that are together able to switch from a flexible textile-like state to a more rigid state by applying negative pressure. The paper describes the concept and the basic behaviour of the material, based on experiments.