Using SEA for Reducing Torque of an Active Compliance

Paraplegic persons suffer from a weaker lower body due to which they lose some mobility and suffer from irregularity in their gait. This loss in gait and mobility can be gained back by using an exoskeleton suit. In this work, an attempt is made to use a series elastic actuator to provide necessary compliance at the knee joint. SEA used is a crank-slider mechanism. Kinetic and FE analysis is carried out. The analysis showed an improvement in torque transmissivity and resulted in a mechanism viable for practical usage. It has shown that compliance provided due to the use of sliding link compensates for the misalignment caused during the movement of the limbs.