project specification
Atlas 2020
A wearable gait exoskeleton for children with neuromuscular diseases. The pediatric gait exoskeleton ATLAS has been designed to provide walking capabilities to children affected by paraplegia, tetraplegia, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, CMD, and Myopathies. The exoskeleton provides 3D walking. The dimensions are easily adjustable to child growth, and only requires 5 minutes to attach to the body. This model requires an auxiliary frame attached to the exoskeleton to control lateral stability. The exoskelton includes ARES technology for intelligent joint stiffness control. The physical user interface is based on motion intention detection.
Specifications
| User height | |
| User weight | |
| Age range | |
| Thigh | |
| Shank | |
| Width | |
| Degrees of freedom (DOF) | |
| Weight | |
| Maximum speed | |
| Power | |
| Motor | |
| Primary materials |
Overview
The pediatric gait exoskeleton ATLAS has been designed to provide walking capabilities to children affected by paraplegia, tetraplegia, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, CMD, and Myopathies. The exoskeleton provides 3D walking. The dimensions are easily adjustable to child growth, and only requires 5 minutes to attach to the body.
This model requires an auxiliary frame attached to the exoskeleton to control lateral stability. The exoskelton includes ARES technology for intelligent joint stiffness control. The physical user interface is based on motion intention detection.
The exoskeleton’s architecture is built around long support rods, or orthoses, which are adjustable to snugly fit the child’s legs and torso. The joints are powered by a set of servo motors to mimic the effort of human muscles, providing the child with the necessary strength to stand upright and to walk. A series of sensors feed into an onboard computer to tracks the child’s steps in order to create the smoothest mechanical gait possible.
The entire apparatus is outfitted with telescoping supports that allow the mechanism to adjust as a child grows in height. A movement controller and a battery providing five hours of life between recharges complete the engineering components
References
Overview of the joint biomechanics; this preliminary section intends to identify and highlight the requirements to be fulfilled by the compliant joints to be implemented in the robotic exoskeleton. A section dedicated to materials and methods presents a short description of the ATLAS lower limb exos
Presents an overview of the ATLAS 2020 project for developing a gait-training wearable exoskeleton for SMA children.
This PhD thesis aims at advancing beyond the State of the Art in joint actuation systems for gait exoskeletons with the purposes of enabling joint adaptation to variable symptomatology and improving energy efficiency, and adaptability during walking. Presents the design and development of two novel
Describes the mechanical design of the exoskeleton, and the electronics are discussed. Describes the physical connection between the exoskeleton and the user. Discusses the balance control of the exoskeleton and how it works. Discusses the conclusion of the work, and talks about future plans.