Background
This is an interdisciplinary project since we are using unconventional material to build soft exoskeleton to serve as a robotic rehabilitator for rat with Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). To begin with, soft robot and actuator have been an emerging research area since they offers another option to special applications because of their unique features which cannot be found in the conventional actuators and robots. This project comes from the collaboration with another two great groups at EPFL, the IRP lab and Translational Neural Engineering (TNE) lab both in Bioengineering and this is right a typical case where rigid robotic interface seem too cumbersome which soft exoskeleton fits right to the point.
Tasks
The first step is to see what is required in our soft actuator and exoskeleton design by investigating the rat hindlimb in a biomechanical point of view. Secondly, we will develop the qualified soft actuators for the exoskeleton according to the criteria set in the previous step. In the following step, all the materials need to be prepared and actuators should be fabricated through their corresponding fabrication process. Then, we will try to make novel orientations of the actuators and combine them together into the final exoskeletons. After that, we will design the control part of the exoskeleton since it is obviously distinctive from the control of traditional exoskeleton made of right part.
Goals
Our first goal is to master the mechanism, materials and fabrication of different types of soft actuators, and develop our new soft actuators from the experience we gained. Secondly, we need to present several novelties in the orientation of soft actuators into the exoskeleton. Regarding the design of the control part, we want the exoskeleton to achieve bio-motion of the rat via advanced control. Ultimately, we are aiming to gain the precious experience and knowledge in the soft actuator design and fabrication, and rehabilitation process, and applied our research to rehabilitation study on human which is another higher level of research.