Diseño e implementación del sistema de instrumentación y comunicaciones de un exoesqueleto de extremidades inferiores

Abstract

The risk of injury to the locomotor system is common due to the physical activity to which the lower extremities are subjected, whether in daily activities, recreation or competition. In this sense, to prolong the motor independence of the individual within a normal life, rehabilitation therapies are essentials in the maintenance and even in the improvement of motor skills. Nowadays, there are many researches interested in solving and reduce these traumatological limitations, under the scientific foundation and technology development, thus achieving the exploration of robotic prototypes for assistance and rehabilitation called exoskeletons. This research work offers an alternative to rehabilitation therapies based on a system of instrumentation, control and communications of a robotic exoskeleton for lower extremities. The instrumentation system is responsible for collecting the required information through the communications network formed by the CAN protocol, so that the PID control scheme makes decisions in reference to a trajectory extracted from subjects without pathologies. The design and implementation of the device is applied to the left lower extremity and it has three degrees of freedom corresponding to the joints of the hip, knee and ankle, which move in the sagittal plane. In this first version, gearboxes of cycloidal and planetary type have been occupied to increase the torque in the joints, the first being of greater relevance due to the increase in the performance of the control. Future research will focus on improving transmission rates and processing times.