Pneumatic actuator design for lower extremity rehabilitation

In this study, a pneumatic actuator rehabilitation knee brace working specifically for the lower extremity, produced using soft robot technology, was designed. Preliminary results of the study are presented for the development and evaluation of the prototype. It is designed from soft actuators to safely adapt to the human knee bending motion. The manufacturing procedure of the actuator and an experiment characterizing the actuators mechanically is explained. thereafter, the integration of the actuators into the knee brace design was explained and then a pre-test study was conducted with the user. Observational test was designed in accordance with the pre-test results. As a result of the test conducted with a volunteer group of 8 people (4 of them are women and 4 are men) consisting of eskişehir technical university sports sciences students, it was observed that the designed pneumatic actuator stabilized the knee flexion angle during the squatting. Keywords: Wearable Technology, Pneumatic, Soft Robot, Maker