Authors
R.K.P.S. Ranaweera1, [email protected], R.A.R.C. Gopura1, [email protected]
1
Bionics Laboratory - Department of Mechanical Engineering,
T.S.S. Jayawardena2, [email protected]
2
Department of Textile and Clothing Technology, University of Moratuwa,
Katubedda, Moratuwa 10400, Sri Lanka
G.K.I. Mann3, [email protected]
3
Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, Memorial University of Newfoundland,
230 Elizabeth Ave, St. John’s, NL A1B 3X9, Canada
www.mrt.ac.lk
Available Online 30 June 2018.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.2991/jrnal.2018.5.1.11
Keywords
knee exoskeleton; biomechanical energy harvesting; passive mechanisms;
squatting
Abstract
This paper proposes a knee exoskeleton with passive-powering mechanism
to provide power assistance to the knee joint during squat lifting of objects
from the ground. It is designed to capture and store 20% of the biomechanical
energy dissipated at the biological knee joint during decent phase and
return the harnessed energy in the ascent phase in a squatting cycle. The
effectiveness of the proposed system was verified by evaluating performance
of key muscles of knee joint using surface electromyography (sEMG) signals.
Statistical data from experiments revealed a reduction of peak root-mean-square
averages of sEMG signals of knee extensor muscles by 30 - 40% during squatting.
Copyright
Copyright © 2018, the Authors. Published by ALife Robotics Corp. Ltd.
Open Access
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licences/by-nc/4.0/).