Design and analysis of passive lower limb exoskeleton to reduce load carried by muscles and joints

Abstract

This paper represents design and analysis of passive lower limb exoskeleton to reduce fatigue load on leg joints and muscles for prevention of muscles and joint pain induced due to frequently squatting and bending tasks. A light weight, and wearable mechanical passive exoskeleton is designed in CAD modeling software. Exoskeleton consists of 2 springs (placed near the knee and hip) along with lower limb links and upper back-end support links. Both are utilized to store the energy during movement of body under conservative force and same energy is delivered to assist the laborers standing up motion. The exoskeleton efficiency was investigated by using FEA and motion simulation, where force reduction was measured with two different knee bend angles (60 and 90 degree) under two conditions with and without the exoskeleton. After the analysis of passive exoskeleton results had been concluded that exoskeleton reduces 40 to 50% load on lower leg. The analysis results showed that this exoskeleton can successfully minimize the fatigue load without any failure.