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Compliant Lightweight Actuator Designs for Robotic Assistance and Rehabilitation Exoskeletons

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Book cover Converging Clinical and Engineering Research on Neurorehabilitation II

Part of the book series: Biosystems & Biorobotics ((BIOSYSROB,volume 15))

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Abstract

This paper presents the design of a compliant, lightweight and adaptable active ankle foot orthosis (AAFO) and two iterations of the conceptual design of an active knee actuator. The actuators are designed to keep their torque to weight as low as possible. The adaptability of the AAFO allows adjusting the device to different patients, without the need of customized versions. The knee actuators are designed for 2 exoskeleton prototypes that will be used for assistance of people with muscle weakness and for gait rehabilitation of incomplete spinal cord injury (iSCI) patients.

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References

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the European Commission’s 7th Framework Program as part of the project BioMot (Grant Agreement number IFP7-ICT-2013-10-611695), by the Flemish agency for Innovation by Science and Technology as part of the project MIRAD (IWT-SBO 120057) and by the FWO grant (no.G026214N).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. R&MM Research Group, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), 1040, Brussel, Belgium

    Dirk Lefeber, Marta Moltedo, Tomislav Bacek, Kevin Langlois, Karen Junius & Bram Vanderborght

Authors
  1. Dirk Lefeber
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  2. Marta Moltedo
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  3. Tomislav Bacek
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  4. Kevin Langlois
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  5. Karen Junius
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  6. Bram Vanderborght
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dirk Lefeber .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Cajal Institute, Spanish National Research Council Cajal Institute, Madrid, Spain

    Jaime Ibáñez

  2. Cajal Institute, Spanish National Research Council Cajal Institute, Madrid, Spain

    José González-Vargas

  3. Avda. de la Universidad s/n, Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche Avda. de la Universidad s/n, Elche, Spain

    José María Azorín

  4. Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston Cullen College of Engineering, Houston, USA

    Metin Akay

  5. Cajal Institute, Spanish National Research Council Cajal Institute, Madrid, Spain

    José Luis Pons

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Cite this paper

Lefeber, D., Moltedo, M., Bacek, T., Langlois, K., Junius, K., Vanderborght, B. (2017). Compliant Lightweight Actuator Designs for Robotic Assistance and Rehabilitation Exoskeletons. In: Ibáñez, J., González-Vargas, J., Azorín, J., Akay, M., Pons, J. (eds) Converging Clinical and Engineering Research on Neurorehabilitation II. Biosystems & Biorobotics, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46669-9_226

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46669-9_226

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-46668-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-46669-9

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

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