Professor of School of Engineering, Design and Built Environment, Western Sydney University, Australia. His research interests cover Industry 4.0, Additive Manufacturing, Advanced Engineering Materials and Structures (Metals and Composites), Multi-scale Modelling of Materials and Structures, Metal Forming and Metal Surface Treatment.
2024-02-24
2024-01-04
2023-11-02
Manuscript received September 17, 2022; revised November 7, 2022; accepted December 14, 2022.
Abstract—As one of the most injured joints of the human body, the ankle is often prone to sprains or fractures that require help in movement to restore mobility. While physical therapists typically perform rehabilitation in one-on-one sessions with patients, several successful robotic rehabilitation solutions have been proposed in recent years. However, their design is usually bulky and requires the patient to sit or stand in a static position. This paper presents devotes to a new design of a device as an exoskeleton for the ankle joint that promotes movement of a person with disability. The proposed design is characterized by a lightweight and inexpensive design for various users with easy-to-wear functions and simple operation. The exoskeleton is supported by four linear electric actuators to enable ankle movements in three directions. A CAD model is developed for proposed design parts and simulations, the results of which provide data on the feasibility of the design and its main performance characteristics. 3D modeling and simulation calculations were performed in a virtual environment using Solidworks Simulation software and motion simulation. Solidworks Simulation provides an electric linear actuator that generates ankle movement. The proposed design of the mechanism using kinematic and static models is analyzed, a scheme of the control structure is developed. Keywords—medical robots design, exoskeletons, rehabilitation devices, ankle joint exoskeleton Cite: Nursultan Zhetenbayev, Gani Balbayev, Algazy Zhauyt, and Beibit Shingissov, "Design and Performance of the New Ankle Joint Exoskeleton," International Journal of Mechanical Engineering and Robotics Research, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 151-158, May 2023. Copyright © 2023 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided that the article is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
