Design and Optimization Analysis of an Adaptive Knee Exoskeleton

Abstract To solve the problem of undesired relative motion of human-machine interaction positions caused by misalignment of the human-machine joints rotation axis of the knee exoskeleton, this study designed an adaptive knee exoskeleton based on a gear-link mechanism (GLM) by considering the human body as a component of the exoskeleton mechanism. Simultaneously, the concept of the wearable area (WA) was proposed, which transformed the operation of aligning the exoskeleton rotation axis with the human knee joint rotation axis into a "face alignment point" in the sagittal plane, reducing the difficulty of aligning the human-machine joint rotation axis. In the kinematic analysis of GLM, the phenomenon of instantaneous movement of the central axis of the human knee joint was considered. Based on the kinematic model, the WA, velocity transfer ratio, and initial position static stiffness of GLM were analyzed. The NSGA-II optimization algorithm was used to optimize the size parameters of GLM, which increased the WA by 18.4%, the average velocity transfer ratio by 4.98%, and the average initial position static stiffness by 6.01%. Finally, the ability of the exoskeleton to absorb movement displacement (MD) was verified through simulation, and the good human-machine kinematic compatibility of the exoskeleton was verified through wearable tests conducted on the initial mechanism principle prototype.