CN107378914B

CN107378914B - Flexible tendon power assisting device for human body pulley joint

Info

Publication number: CN107378914B
Application number: CN201710453290.9A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 崔翔; 张利剑; 刘昊; 廖平平
Original assignee: Beijing Machinery Equipment Research Institute
Current assignee: Beijing Machinery Equipment Research Institute
Priority date: 2017-06-15
Filing date: 2017-06-15
Publication date: 2020-01-24
Anticipated expiration: 2037-06-15
Also published as: CN107378914A

Abstract

The utility model provides a flexible tendon booster unit towards human coaster joint, the device includes hoist engine, rope, line sheath, the terminal fixed cover of line sheath, fabric next to the shin, flexible tendon and elastic fixation area. The multi-branch-chain parallel flexible tendon power assisting device provided by the invention is designed for assisting the pulley joints by virtue of the motion characteristics of the pulley joints, the flexible structure is attached to the close-fitting fabric without depending on an external rigid structure, the generated force directly acts on the human body joints, the auxiliary torque of the human body joints is provided, and the flexible and accurate power assisting transmission of the irregular pulley joints of the human body is ensured. The wearable flexible tendon power assisting device is of a pure flexible structure, and free movement of a human body cannot be limited. The flexible tendon power assisting device can be applied to rehabilitation and exercise training and can be provided for people engaged in endurance consumption type work with strong persistence to use, so that the load and energy consumption of relevant muscle groups of a user are reduced, and the strength and endurance are improved.

Description

Flexible tendon power assisting device for human body pulley joint

Technical Field

The invention relates to a wearable human body movement power assisting device, in particular to a flexible tendon power assisting device facing a human body pulley joint.

Background

The wearable human body movement assisting system mainly comprises a power assisting exoskeleton system which is worn on a human body, a mechanical structure which is in the same configuration with the human body is constructed by developing the power assisting exoskeleton system worn on the human body, so that a human body joint is aligned with an external mechanism joint, and external mechanism joint torque is transmitted to the human body joint, so that joint assisting force can be provided for human body movement, and the motor function of a normal person is improved or a patient with motor function disorder is helped to obtain the motor ability.

The human motion assisting device has the advantages that load bearing capacity is given to a human body to be extraordinary, but the power assisting exoskeleton is heavy and not comfortable to wear.

As a typical human body rotational joint, a pulley joint (elbow, wrist, knee, ankle, etc.) is different from a regular rotational joint in that a rotational center axis is accompanied by a parasitic offset motion during rotation, and thus if the human body pulley joint is regarded as a rotational joint to be driven improperly, an external force cannot be accurately applied to generate a moment around a changed rotational axis, and an additional harmful moment is generated during the motion of the human body joint, and thus, accurate transmission of assisting force cannot be achieved.

Disclosure of Invention

In view of the above analysis, the invention provides a bionic flexible tendon power assisting device attached to the periphery of a human body joint from the motion characteristics of the pulley joint and aiming at the pulley joint to perform flexible tendon power assisting design, the flexible structure is attached to close-fitting fabric without depending on an external rigid structure, the generated force directly acts on the human body joint to provide auxiliary torque of the human body joint, and the flexible power assisting tendon is designed by using a parallel mechanism configuration to adapt to the motion of the pulley joint.

A flexible tendon power-assisting device facing a human pulley joint comprises a combined transmission device, a body-fitting fabric and a fixing piece;

the combined transmission device is connected with the close-fitting fabric, transmits force to the close-fitting fabric and is used for driving limbs on two sides of the joint to move;

the body-fitting fabric comprises a joint body-fitting fabric, an upper body-fitting fabric and a lower body-fitting fabric, wherein the upper body-fitting fabric and the lower body-fitting fabric are positioned on two sides of the joint body-fitting fabric;

the fixing piece is fixed on the body-contacting fabric and used for fixing the body-contacting fabric on the surface of a human body.

Further, the combined transmission device comprises a winch, a rope, a wire sheath end fixing sleeve and a flexible tendon;

one end of the rope is fixed on the winch, the other end of the rope penetrates through the wire sheath to be connected with the front end of the flexible tendon, the tail end of the wire sheath is fixed on the tail end fixing sleeve of the wire sheath, the tail end fixing sleeve of the wire sheath is fixed on the close-fitting fabric, and the tail end of the flexible tendon is fixed on the lower close-fitting fabric.

Furthermore, the flexible tendon comprises a plurality of single-branched-chain flexible tendons, the plurality of single-branched-chain flexible tendons are connected in parallel, the front ends of the plurality of single-branched-chain flexible tendons are gathered into a whole bundle and connected with a rope, and the tail ends of the plurality of single-branched-chain flexible tendons are respectively fixed on the fabric next to the skin.

Further, determining the shape and the number of the single-branch chain flexible tendons according to an axis offset result determined by a human body pulley joint movement test experiment and the size of the required assistance, wherein the number of the single-branch chain flexible tendons is at least three; the tail ends of the single-chain flexible tendons are respectively fixed on different positions of the fabric next to the skin through tendon end fixing pieces.

The shape and the number of the single-branched-chain flexible tendons are designed according to the characteristic that the axis of a human pulley joint drifts in a three-dimensional space along with movement, the number of the branched chains of the flexible tendons is at least 3, and the number of the branched chains of the flexible tendons is 3, so that the design can be simplified.

Furthermore, the front end of the single-branched-chain flexible tendon is thin, the rear end of the single-branched-chain flexible tendon is thick, and the front end and the rear end are connected in a straight line or a smooth curve.

The design principle of each branched chain is defined as: the front end is small, so that the branch chains can be conveniently bunched together into a wire sheath; the back end is thick, so that the connection surface with the close-fitting fabric can be enlarged, and the structural strength is improved; the shape between the front end and the rear end can be simply designed to be connected by straight lines or designed to be connected by smooth curves; the specific size proportion is freely designed according to the strength requirement of the boosting force.

Furthermore, the winch comprises a motor and a wire spool, wherein one end of the rope is fixed on the wire spool and can rotate along with the wire spool; a speed reducer is arranged inside the motor

Further, an anti-wire-jumping device is arranged on the wire spool.

Further, the wire sheath is a mechanical channel with a hard outer shell and a certain bending radius of deformability; the close-fitting fabric is an elastic close-fitting fabric material; the flexible tendon is made of natural latex.

Furthermore, the number of the combined transmission devices is two, and the two combined transmission devices are respectively positioned on two sides of the close-fitting fabric and used for realizing the two-way motion assistance of the human body pulley joint.

Further, the fixing pieces are elastic fixing belts which are respectively fixed on the upper body fitting fabric and the lower body fitting fabric.

The invention has the following beneficial effects:

the multi-branch-chain parallel flexible tendon power assisting device is suitable for irregular movement of pulley joints, and can ensure flexible and accurate power assisting transmission of irregular pulley joints of a human body through a 3D forming design of a single-branch-chain elastomer and a flexible tendon power assisting mode based on multi-branch-chain parallel configuration. Wearable flexible tendon booster unit is pure flexible structure, so not only can make the dress lightly nimble and good with the interactive compliance of people, can paste the body and dress, can not restrict the motion of human free.

Additional features and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by the practice of the invention. The objectives and other advantages of the invention will be realized and attained by the structure particularly pointed out in the written description and claims hereof as well as the appended drawings.

Drawings

The drawings are only for purposes of illustrating particular embodiments and are not to be construed as limiting the invention, wherein like reference numerals are used to designate like parts throughout.

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural view of a flexible tendon bidirectional power assisting device.

Fig. 2 is a schematic structural view of a unidirectional force-assisting device for a flexible tendon.

Wherein: 1-a winch, 2-a motor, 3-a wire spool, 4-a wire jumping prevention piece, 5-a rope, 6-a wire sheath, 7-a wire sheath end fixing sleeve, 8-a close-fitting fabric, 9-a flexible tendon, 10-a tendon end fixing piece, 11-an elastic fixing band, 12-an elastic fixing band, 13-a human body pulley joint, 14-a control system and 15-a power supply system.

Detailed Description

The invention will be further described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

based on the deep research on the compound motion model of the human pulley joint, the invention provides a joint power assisting mode using a multi-branch parallel bionic flexible tendon, optimizes the rigidity, attachment point, size and the like of the branched chains of the tendon, enables the tendon to well follow the compound motion form of the pulley joint, obtains the flexible tendon power assisting device shown in figure 1, and can realize the bidirectional motion power assisting of any pulley joint of the human body by driving two groups of flexible tendons by two motors. The device mainly includes: the rope winding machine comprises a winding machine 1, a rope 5, a wire sheath 6, a wire sheath end fixing sleeve 7, a parallel flexible tendon 9, a close-fitting fabric 8, an elastic fixing belt 11 and the like.

The invention can decide to perform unidirectional assistance or bidirectional assistance on human joints according to specific application scenes, for the bidirectional assistance of the joints, two groups of flexible tendons can be arranged at two sides of a target pulley joint, two groups of windlasses 1 are needed, wherein 1 comprises a motor 2, a wire spool 3, a wire jumping prevention piece 4, a speed reducer, a control system and a power supply system, the motor 2 selects the combination of the motor and the speed reducer according to the actually needed output power, output power and output speed, the wire spool 3 is designed to convert the rotation of the motor into the linear motion of a rope, an L-shaped wire jumping prevention piece 4 is designed to prevent the rope 5 (the rope can use a steel wire rope or other tough ropes) from jumping out of a wire groove of the wire spool 3 when swinging, and the windlasses can perform the driving action according to the needs by matching the control system 14 and the power supply system 15, the control system, the power supply system and the winch can be integrally carried on the back of the power-assisted target human body.

The wire sheath 6 is provided with a hard shell and has the deformability with a certain bending radius, a relatively stable mechanical channel can be formed, the remote force transmission function of the flexible force transmission system is achieved through the wire sheath 6, the tension on the rope 5 is transmitted to the joints of the human body, and the assistance to the joints is achieved. The embodiment has chosen a mature bicycle brake cable housing and the reference person can choose a suitable alternative according to the above description of the invention.

The joint flexible boosting structure is integrally arranged around a target joint, after a rope 5 reaches the position close to the joint through a wire sheath 6, the end part of the wire sheath 6 is fixed on an elastic tight-fitting body-fitting fabric 8 through a wire sheath end fixing sleeve 7. The wire sheath end fixing sleeve 7 can be made of cloth which is easy to sew or provided with strong thread gluing, the close-fitting fabric 8 can be made of fabric materials with moderate elasticity and comfortable wearing, or mature products in the market are purchased, and the comfortable wearing performance of the human body needs to be paid attention to during use.

The tail end of the rope 5 extends out of the wire sheath 6 and is connected with the front ends of the flexible tendons 9 with multiple parallel chains, the front ends of the flexible tendons 9 are a whole bundle of a plurality of single-chain flexible tendons, and the rear ends of the flexible tendons 9 are connected with the close-fitting fabric 8 through the tendon end fixing pieces 10. In order to prevent the flexible tendon 9 from exerting force to assist the joint and drawing and deforming the close-fitting fabric, a plurality of elastic fixing belts 11 are fixed on the close-fitting fabric 8 through force balance analysis, so that most of the tensile force from the flexible tendon 9 is counteracted, and the mechanical stability of the close-fitting fabric 8 is improved. The flexible tendon 9 realizes the movement of limbs 13 at two sides of the joint according to the movement characteristics of the pulley joint 12 of the human body, adopts a plurality of single-chain flexible tendon structures (not limited to three shown in the embodiment), selects an elastic material such as natural latex, changes the elastic characteristics of the natural latex by changing the additive proportion, manufactures different tendon branched chains, installs and fixes the tendon branched chains according to specific conditions, enables each tendon branched chain to generate resultant force vectors with different sizes and directions, and can more accurately provide torque for the pulley joint rotation movement with the specific rotation axis change characteristics, thereby achieving the effect of reducing the torque in the non-rotation movement direction. The flexible tendon branched chain related by the invention can be made of elastomer linear materials, flexible ropes or pneumatic artificial muscles, and the like, and the number of the branched chains in the parallel configuration of the flexible tendon can be freely configured without being limited to a specific numerical value.

Taking an elbow joint as an example for explanation, firstly, a driving motor is selected to be MAXON RE30, a control system 14 is a framework based on DSP and FPGA, the capacity of a lithium battery is selected to be 5Ah, the diameter of a winding disc of a winding engine is selected to be 50mm, a wire sheath material is spring steel, and a rope is selected to be a steel wire rope with the diameter of 2 mm. Three flexible tendons are selected, natural latex is selected as tendon material, a tendon mould is designed, and then casting molding is carried out. The tendon size is: the integrated round bunch of front end, diameter 2mm, the rear end is square cross section, the size is 4mm 6mm, according to the axis skew result that elbow joint motion test experiment confirmed, combine front and back end branch chain position, can confirm flexible tendon branch chain length, set up three branch chain initial length here and be 50mm, 60mm and 70mm, connect the fabric next to the shin in elbow joint upper and lower both sides under the condition that does not interfere each other, wherein the fabric next to the shin sets up to 0.8 ~ 1.2Kpa to the scope of body surface pressure, in order to guarantee the comfort level. Elastic fixation area 11 is the strap of embedded rubber band, and the winding is fixed in flexible tendon both ends and the fabric junction next to the shin, prevents that the helping hand is too big to the excessive deformation of dragging of fabric.

The flexible tendon exercise assisting system facing the human pulley joint can be applied to rehabilitation medical treatment, exercise training and the like and is provided for people engaged in endurance consumption type work with strong persistence to use, the load and energy consumption of relevant muscle groups of users are reduced, and the strength and endurance are improved.

1) Rehabilitation: the flexible tendon system can be used for rehabilitation training or assisting walking and daily operation of patients with dyskinesia such as stroke, spinal cord injury and the like. The flexible tendon power-assisted system is directly attached to the periphery of a human joint, provides power-assisted torque for the human joint, has flexible and light structure, can more flexibly assist a patient to complete corresponding actions, and is higher in safety.

2) And (3) exercise training: dress flexible tendon and carry out the athletic training, can slow down fatigue, also can promote wearer's athletic ability, help the user to accomplish some and have more challenging sports goals to can play the effect of protection and stable muscle crowd, reduce injured risk.

3) Heavy physical work: the bionic tendon system is light and portable, has high cost-efficiency ratio, and is very suitable for repetitive workers mainly with endurance. Because the bionic tendon can flexibly pay attention to fatigue relief of several main muscle groups which are hard to work, the endurance limit of workers can be obviously improved, the working efficiency is improved, and the body health is protected.

The above description is only for the preferred embodiment of the present invention, but the scope of the present invention is not limited thereto, and any changes or substitutions that can be easily conceived by those skilled in the art within the technical scope of the present invention are included in the scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. A flexible tendon power-assisting device facing a human pulley joint, characterized in that the device comprises a combined transmission device, a body-fitting fabric (8) and a fixing piece;

the body-fitting fabric (8) comprises a joint body-fitting fabric, an upper body-fitting fabric and a lower body-fitting fabric, wherein the upper body-fitting fabric and the lower body-fitting fabric are positioned on two sides of the joint body-fitting fabric;

the fixing piece is fixed on the body-contacting fabric (8) and is used for fixing the body-contacting fabric (8) on the surface of a human body;

the combined transmission device comprises a winch (1), a rope (5), a wire sheath (6), a wire sheath tail end fixing sleeve (7) and a flexible tendon (9);

one end of the rope (5) is fixed on the winch (1), the other end of the rope penetrates through the wire sheath (6) to be connected with the front end of the flexible tendon (9), the tail end of the wire sheath (6) is fixed on the wire sheath tail end fixing sleeve (7), the wire sheath tail end fixing sleeve (7) is fixed on the upper close-fitting fabric, and the tail end of the flexible tendon (9) is fixed on the lower close-fitting fabric;

the flexible tendon (9) comprises a plurality of single-branched-chain flexible tendons, the single-branched-chain flexible tendons are connected in parallel, the front ends of the single-branched-chain flexible tendons are gathered into a whole bundle and connected with the rope (5), and the tail ends of the single-branched-chain flexible tendons are respectively fixed on the lower skin-tight fabric;

the front end of the single-branched-chain flexible tendon is small, the rear end of the single-branched-chain flexible tendon is thick, and the front end and the rear end are connected in a straight line or a smooth curve;

the winding machine (1) comprises a motor (2), a wire spool (3), a control system and a power supply system, wherein the motor (2) is used for driving the wire spool (3) to rotate; one end of the rope (5) is fixed on the wire spool (3) and can rotate along with the wire spool (3); a speed reducer is arranged inside the motor (2);

the two combined transmission devices are respectively positioned on two sides of the close-fitting fabric (8) and used for realizing the two-way motion assistance of the human body pulley joint.

2. The flexible tendon power assisting device of claim 1, wherein the shape and number of the single-branched flexible tendons are determined according to an axis offset result determined by a human pulley joint movement test experiment and the size of the required power assisting, and the number of the single-branched flexible tendons is at least three; the tail ends of the single-chain flexible tendons are respectively fixed on different positions of the lower close-fitting fabric through tendon end fixing pieces (10).

3. Flexible tendon power-assist device according to claim 2 characterized in that an anti-jump wire (4) is arranged on the wire spool (3).

4. The flexible tendon power-assist device according to claim 3 characterized in that the wire sheath (6) is a mechanical channel with a housing and a deformability of bending radius; the close-fitting fabric (8) is an elastic tight-fitting fabric material; the flexible tendon (9) is made of natural latex material.

5. The flexible tendon power-assist device according to claim 1, wherein the fixing member is an elastic fixing band (11) fixed to the upper body fitting fabric and the lower body fitting fabric, respectively.