Mechanical Design and Optimization on Lower Limb Exoskeleton for Rehabilitation

Abstract

The lower limb exoskeleton robot is suitable for rehabilitation training or walking on patients with mild disease or after rehabilitation. However, the mismatch of exoskeleton mechanical structure and human body and the unreasonable design have become serious challenges. It damages the fixed gait of rehabilitation training and has negative influence on the patient's adaptation to gait information, thus reducing the rehabilitation efficiency. Therefore, this paper proposes a new mechanical configuration of the lower limb exoskeleton robot. Firstly, the characteristics of the lower limbs of the human body are analyzed. And then based on the above analysis, an exoskeleton thigh with a dip angle and a convenient length adjusting device are proposed. An exoskeleton ankle mechanism with ankle flexion/dorsiflexion and adduction/deduction is also designed to facilitate the user's independent center of gravity adjustment. Finally, the finite element analysis results figured by SolidWorks Simulation of the key parts show that the whole mechanism design has certain stability and strength margin.