Static and Dynamic Properties of a 6-DOF Robotic System for Knee Joint Biomechanics Study

Abstract

The application of robotic technology to the field of joint biomechaics has started more than 20 years ago 1). Since then, a variety of studies have employed commercially available articulated manipulators for the joint biomechanical studies 1–5). However, such articulated manipulators are generally poor at stiffness and precision although they were basically designed to achieve high speeds of motion while performing tasks in a large work space. To solve the problem, we have previously developed a robotic system consisting of a custom-made 6-degree of freedom (6-DOF) manipulator and a universal force-moment sensor (UFS) 6). The present study was aimed to evaluate the static and dynamic properties of the system.