The Development of Assistive Devices

The main objective of the third subproject is to build a set of wearable rehabilitation assistive device. This involves two major aspects: Hardware and software. For hardware aspect, main focus will be on mechanical design, controller and circuit structuring. Software aspect will be focused on designing and composing control algorithm.The hardware involves different components. For mechanism structuring, SolidWorks will be used to construct the model of these wearable rehabilitation assistive device. ANSYS will be used to analyze the reaction of each individual mechanical part under different force and pressure, providing directions for correction and improvement. In regards to materials, HASEL(Hydraulically Amplified Self-healing Electrostatic) actuator, with its known high muscle strength and scalability, will be used to make artificial muscles and construct these wearable rehabilitation assistive devices. This material can be self-perceived its movement and self-healing electrical damage, enabling wearable assistive tools to be lightweight and highly adaptable without relying on heavy rigid structure. As for structuring circuit, DSP will be used as core control and will be combined with our designed circuit board. The battery will be used as the power source to activate and drive these wearable subsidiary tools with high voltage amplifier. The DAQ device is used to capture the signal from the current sensor to calculate the capacitance of the electrode.As for software aspect, Python will be employed in this research to compose necessary algorithm. In addition, ANFIS will be used to train the data driven model. Using the database of angle and capacitance values to control the voltage of HASEL actuator to change its action. When using HASEL artificial muscles for human limb rehabilitation, the data driven model is used to convert the capacitance value into an angle feedback signal to perform the rehabilitation motion control of the human limb.During the research period of this project, a full integration between hardware and software will be implemented and practical improvements will be made based on the actual experiments and the testing results. The final goal of this research is to achieve comfortable rehabilitation assistive device in line with the needs of the corresponding users.