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Dissertation
Criteria for the design and interface of a powered upper extremity orthosis
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Drexel University
1999
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17918/00010075
Abstract
To date, only one type of orthosis has been commercialized and used in any significant numbers; this is not due to lack of developmental effort, but the fact that none of them are simple and acceptable to the user. Another factor is the lack of user involvement in the design and development of orthosis in the past. Orthosis designs have been based on the designer's perceptions of user needs, rather than user perceptions of their own needs. In addition, there has been no previous knowledge about work space requirements for orthosis designs. There has been no published data on characterizing the user population of a powered orthosis. In this thesis, we have performed experiments to gather data necessary for the design and development of a powered upper extremity orthosis. Utilizing a performance measure of the sum of distance moved in three space, we have prioritized various ADL (Activities of Daily Living) tasks. This priority list can be used by other orthosis designers to evaluate their designs and specify their limitations. We illustrate the procedure with an example. We have developed a 2 dof gravity compensated articulate mechanism, and shown how it can be expanded to many degrees of freedom. User surveys were conducted to extract a list of tasks for use by orthosis designers. We have carried out experiments, and characterized the arms of disabled users of an orthosis. The rate information provides the bounds of a powered orthosis, while the isokinetic forces are useful in knowing the limits of force as a control input. User generated noise at the interface was determined to establish the threshold necessary for motion generation. Interface between our setup and the human arm was also identified. A preliminary investigation of utilizing one force sensor at the interface was carried out with the help of a mathematical model. This model was extended to reject the user intention by treating it as an external noise. We also discuss various control strategies that were developed and applied to an robotic orthosis test bed.
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Details
- Title
- Criteria for the design and interface of a powered upper extremity orthosis
- Creators
- Ranganathan Ramanathan
- Awarding Institution
- Drexel University
- Degree Awarded
- Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
- Publisher
- Drexel University; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Number of pages
- xii, 108 pages
- Resource Type
- Dissertation
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- College of Engineering (1970-2026); Drexel University
- Other Identifier
- 991021889110404721