Ortholeg Project - Development of an Active Orthosis Prototype for Lower Limbs

Currently the increasing number of robotic devices for application in the mobility of people who had suffered some type of spinal cord injury, it is necessary to develop new equipment more adaptable, safe and efficient. Robotic devices that aid in locomotion of paraplegic people can play their function, they must be able to reproduce the lost movements with most of fidelity and security. This paper presents a prototype of an active orthosis for lower limbs developed by the robotic and dedicated systems group of Department of Computing Engineering and Automation (DCA/UFRN) named Ortholeg. The proposed orthosis is an orthopedic device with the main objective of providing walking capacity to people with partial or total loss of limbs movements. The orthosis was projected to reproduce the movements of human gait. The movements of the joints of the orthosis are controlled by DC motors equipped with mechanical reductions, whose purpose is to reduce rotational speed and increase the torque, thus generating smooth movements. An embedded electronic system for sensory data acquisition and motor control was projected.