Mechanism Design and Kinematics Analysis of an Original Cable-driving Exoskeleton Robot

Abstract

To meet the lightweight and flexibility actual requirements of the exoskeleton robot system used for robot assisted rehabilitation; a exoskeleton system according with the motion characteristics of human upper limbs was designed based on the analysis of upper limbs structures. The shoulder and elbow joints of the exoskeleton system are driven by steel wire to realize the movement and torque transfer, which can not only realize the lightweight mechanism design of the exoskeleton by allocating the joint driving components at the robot base, but also can realize the flexible mechanism design of the joints by adjusting the stiffness of the cable-driving system. The decoupling matrix of the exoskeleton cable-driving system was given based on the analysis of the shoulder and elbow joints motion characteristic and the position and pose decoupled kinematics modal was established by using vector product method. The test experiments based on the physical prototype show that the motion range and the motion characteristics of the exoskeleton robot system can perfectly meet the needs of upper limb rehabilitation training.