Abstract
Taiwan has already entered the realm of aging societies; with its rapidly aging population, studies concerning preventative health care, medical care, and arrangements for the elderly have become more and more important. This study designs a wearable lower limb exoskeleton in the hopes to help less able people, for example the elderly or people who suffers sports injuries or polio. This study is comprised of five parts. The first part (Chapter 2) referred to the gait analysis, where 3-dimensional experiments are combined with LifeMOD simulation to analyze various mechanical behaviors in people climb stairs. The second part (Chapter 3) was to analyze the structural strength of the assistive devices by the finite element method and the shear stress on the comfortable state of skin from wearing the lower limb exoskeleton. The third part (Chapter 4) concerns the design of a spring structure that conforms to the lower limb path to provide assistive knee torque to the result from Part 1. The results of Part 2 are then applied to the material of construction (lower limb exoskeleton) and the shape design. Finally, a high pressure carbon dioxide gas is used as the power source, and a cable-driven mechanism is used to complete the prototype of the entire lower limb exoskeleton system. The fourth part (Chapter 5) uses the magnitude median frequency (MMF) of the surface electromyography (sEMG) in combination with modified regression analysis to predict the local fatigue endurance time of the biceps brachii when the hands are lifted repeatedly task. The purpose of this method is to analyze the effectiveness of the exoskeleton. The last part (Chapter 6) analyzes the effect of wearing or not wearing exoskeleton on lower limb muscles, using the methods mentioned in Part 4 (Chapter 5); in addition, the segmental method is also applied to analyze knee torque with or without wearing exoskeleton.