Development of an upper limb power assist system using pneumatic actuators for farming lift-up motion

Abstract

A power assist system has lately attracted considerable attention to lifting-up an object without low back pain. We have been developing power assist systems with pneumatic actuators for the elbow and shoulder to farming support of lifting-up a bag of rice weighing 30 kg. This paper describes the mechanism and control method of this power assist system. The pneumatic rotary actuator supports shoulder motion, and the air cylinder supports elbow motion. In this control method, the surface electromyogram (EMG) signals are used as input information of the controller. The joint support torques of human are calculated based on the antigravity term of necessary joint torques, which are estimated on the dynamics of a human approximated link model. The experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed mechanism and control method of the power assist system.