Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2017
24th ABCM International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
Test Bench to Experimental Modeling of an Magneto-Reological Actuator for Knee Prostheses and Exoskeletons
Submission Author:
Rafhael M Andrade , ES
Co-Authors:
Igor Batista Vieira, Gabriel Fontoura, Antonio Bento Filho, Claysson Vimieiro, Rafhael M Andrade
Presenter: Rafhael M Andrade
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2017.COB17-0313
Abstract
The movement performed by the knee is essential to reproduce proper gait in transfemoral prostheses and exoskeletons. The development of actuators to replace the knee or to reproduce their movement has been extensively studied in last few decades. Despite advances and research in assistive technology, developed active knees still have some limitations, such as high weight, low active and resistive torque and high energy consumption. This paper describes a test bench for experimental modeling of a magneto-rheological (MR) actuator for knee prostheses and exoskeletons. The actuator possesses multiple functions working as motor, clutch, or brake, reproducing the movement closest to a real knee. The test bench uses a National Instruments USB-6003 data acquisition board and the software LabVIEW to control the actuator subsystems and another bench devices and to acquire data from sensors of torque, current, temperature, and others. The sampling rate is about 1.0 kHz, and it is possible to identify the transfer function of several elements of the actuator, essential for comparison with its theoretical model. The results show that the developed actuator is promising for the proposed applications, which require multiple functions with compact size and quick response time.
Keywords
Magneto-Rheological Actuator, prostheses, exoskeletons, biomechanics, test bench
