Soft robot for gait rehabilitation of spinalized rodents

Author

Yun Seong Song ; Yi Sun ; van den Brand, Rubia ; von Zitzewitz, J. ; Micera, Silvestro ; Courtine, Gregoire ; Paik, Jamie

Author_Institution

Reconfigurable Robot. Lab., Ecole Polytech. Fed. de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

fYear

2013

fDate

3-7 Nov. 2013

Firstpage

971

Lastpage

976

Abstract

Soft actuators made of highly elastic polymers allow novel robotic system designs, yet application-specific soft robotic systems are rarely reported. Taking notice of the characteristics of soft pneumatic actuators (SPAs) such as high customizability and low inherent stiffness, we report in this work the use of soft pneumatic actuators for a biomedical use - the development of a soft robot for rodents, aimed to provide a physical assistance during gait rehabilitation of a spinalized animal. The design requirements to perform this unconventional task are introduced. Customized soft actuators, soft joints and soft couplings for the robot are presented. Live animal experiment was performed to evaluate and show the potential of SPAs for their use in the current and future biomedical applications.

Keywords

control system synthesis; elasticity; gait analysis; medical robotics; patient rehabilitation; pneumatic actuators; SPA; application-specific soft robotic systems; biomedical applications; elastic polymers; gait rehabilitation; physical assistance; robotic system design; soft couplings; soft joints; soft pneumatic actuators; spinalized rodents; Actuators; Animals; Bones; Couplings; Joints; Robot sensing systems;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on

Conference_Location

Tokyo

ISSN

2153-0858

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IROS.2013.6696468

Filename

6696468