Experimental Validation of Light Cable-Driven Elbow-Assisting Device L-CADEL Design

TL;DR

This paper introduces a lightweight, portable cable-driven elbow-assisting device (L-CADEL) with improved control and design, validated through simulations and experiments, enhancing comfort and usability for rehabilitation.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, portable design of a cable-driven elbow assistive device with specific kinematic modeling and control improvements, validated experimentally.

Findings

Enhanced portability and comfort over previous designs

Successful numerical and experimental validation of the kinematic model

Potential for use in home and hospital rehabilitation during social distancing

Abstract

This paper presents a new design of CADEL, a cable-driven elbow-assisting device, with light weighting and control improvements. The new device design is appropriate to be more portable and user-oriented solution, presenting additional facilities with respect to the original design. One of potential benefits of improved portability can be envisaged in the possibility of house and hospital usage keeping social distancing while allowing rehabilitation treatments even during a pandemic spread. Specific attention has been devoted to design main mechatronic components by developing specific kinematics models. The design process includes an implementation of specific control hardware and software. The kinematic model of the new design is formulated and features are evaluated through numerical simulations and experimental tests. An evaluation from original design highlights the proposed improvements mainly in terms of comfort, portability and user-oriented operation.