Proceedings of the 25th Nordic Seminar on Computational Mechanics

K. Persson, J. Revstedt, G. Sandberg, M. Wallin (Eds.)

⃝Lund
c University, 2012

Design and Optimization of a Spring-loaded Cable-driven

Robotic Exoskeleton
Lelai Zhou, Shaoping Bai, Michael Skipper Andersen, and John Rasmussen

Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Aalborg University

Fibigerstraede 16, 9220 Aalborg, Denmark, {lzh, shb, msa, jr}@m-tech.aau.dk

Summary. An approach of designing a robotic exoskeleton for a partially paralyzed human upper extremity
is proposed in this paper. A musculoskeletal arm model is built to simulate the injury symptom in terms of
evaluating the muscle activations. The exoskeleton is built with a gravity compensation system. The biomechanical
human arm model and the exoskeleton are integrated together to form a bio-robotic system. Design analysis and
optimization are conducted in the bio-robotic system to evaluate parameters of the exoskeleton.

Key words: exoskeleton, spring-loaded, cable-driven, biomechanics

Introduction
Exoskeleton robots have attracted more and more research interests, as they have prospective applications
in rehabilitation and patient assistance. Effective means of motion assistance, such as weight balancing
orthoses, will be studied in this work. Several passive exoskeletons have been developed recently. The
X-ArT M exoskeletal arm with passive actuated joints is provided by Equipois to support human arms
in the working environment [1]. Wilmington Robotic Exoskeleton (WREX) is a two-segment, 4-DOF
(degree of freedom) passive orthoses provided by Nemours [2]. A variable impedance powered elbow
exoskeleton named NEUROExos [3] was developed for the rehabilitation task of stroke patients.
In this work, an integrated musculoskeletal-exoskeleton simulation approach is proposed for the
optimal design of exoskeletons. An important part of our work is an advanced biomechanical model
of the upper extremity, which provides a deep understanding of the elasticity required to support the
patient’s motion depending on the nature of the disability. The bio-robotic system is built in AnyBody
Modeling System, where the design parameters of the exoskeleton are formulated as an optimization
problem.

Modeling of the Bio-robotic System

The bio-robotic system is built by integrating a musculoskeletal model and a robotic exoskeleton model.

Biomechanical Modeling
The biomechanical study is conducted with the AnyBody Modeling System, in which the human arm
model is built and generated from the system’s model repository. The upper body is constrained at the
pelvis, and the right arm has seven joints to be activated.
In a musculoskeletal model, the biomechanics of muscles and bones is statically indeterminate. The
muscle recruitment can be formulated as an optimization problem as
min G(f(M) )
s.t. Cf = d
(M)
fi ≥ 0, i ∈ {1, . . . , n(M) } (1)
where f = [f(R) , f(M) ] is composed of a n-dimensional vector of joint reaction forces f(R) and muscle forces
f(M) . The vector d is the external force, and C is a coefficient matrix generated from the arm anatomy
and muscle attachments. The choice of the objective function G(f(M) ) depends on the muscle recruitment
criterion. The polynomial criterion is adopted as
( (M) ) p
f
G(f(M) ) = ∑ i (2)
i Ni
where Ni are normalization factors or functions, which take the form of muscle strength in this work.
The power p indicates the synergy of muscles. p = 3 is recommended as it yields good results for most
(M)
submaximal muscle efforts. The ratio fi /Ni refers to the muscle activity. The overall muscle activity
can be calculated as
(M)
fi
H =∑ (3)
i Ni
In order to simulate the muscle condition of a patient, any single piece of muscle can be enabled or
disabled. In the model the muscle is disabled by setting its muscle force to zero.

Exoskeleton Modeling
The wearable exoskeleton stores the springs in a box which can be carried on the back (Fig. 2). As shown
in Fig. 1, the green lines are the cables for transferring spring forces. In this design, two springs are used
to drive the elbow joint and three springs to drive the shoulder joint.

3 spring cable
anchoring points

Elbow upper
bracket

2 spring cable
via points

Elbow lower
bracket

2 spring cable
anchoring points

Figure 1. A wearable cable- Figure 2. Back view of the

driven exoskeleton. wearable exoskeleton. Figure 3. CAD embodiment of the exoskeleton.

At the elbow joint, two anchoring nodes are designed on the elbow lower bracket, as shown in Fig. 3.
Two cables linked to two springs from the anchoring point through the two via points on the elbow upper
bracket. The force in the spring cable is defined as
Fs = Fpre + k ∗ ∆l (4)
where Fpre denotes pre-load force of the spring. k is the spring stiffness co-efficient and ∆l is the variation
of the spring length.
A Bio-robotic Model
The bio-robotic is developed through integrating the human arm and the exoskeleton model, as shown in
Fig. 1. The exoskeleton model is built in SolidWorks and then exported to AnyBody. All joints need to
be defined in AnyBody. The armor part of the exoskeleton is fixed to the trunk of the human model. The
elbow lower bracket is connected to the lower arm through a translation-spherical joint. The attachment
of the upper bracket to the upper arm is modelled as a revolute joint.

Optimization on the Exoskeleton

In this work, the design of the exoskeleton is formed as an optimization problem through biomechanical
simulation. The kinematics and dynamics simulation of the bio-robotic system is conducted in AnyBody
Modeling System.

Brachial Plexus Injury

The brachial plexus is a network of nerves that conducts signals from the spinal cord, which is housed in
the spinal canal of the vertebral column (or spine), to the shoulder, arm and hand. The branches of the
brachial plexus and their associated muscles are listed in Table 1, sorted with respect to their roots.

Table 1. Branches of brachial plexus.

No. Nerve Roots From Muscles

1 axillary C5, C6 posterior cord deltoid, teres minor
2 radial C5, C6, C7, C8, T1 posterior cord triceps brachii, supinator, anconeus, the ex-
tensor muscles of the forearm, brachioradialis
3 upper subscapular nerve C5, C6 posterior cord subscapularis(upper part 1 2)
4 lower subscapular nerve C5, C6 posterior cord subscapularis(lower part 3 4 5 6), teres major
5 thoracodorsal nerve C6, C7, C8 posterior cord latissimus dorsi
6 lateral pectoral nerve C5, C6, C7 lateral cord pectoralis major
7 musculocutaneous nerve C5, C6, C7 lateral cord coracobrachialis, brachialis, biceps brachii
8 suprascapular nerve C5, C6 upper trunk supraspinatus, infraspinatus
9 long thoracic nerve C5, C6, C7 root serratus anterior
10 dorsal scapular nerve C5 root rhomboid muscles, levator scapulae

Formulation of Optimization
To simplify the optimization, the three springs for the shoulder joint use the same type of spring which
means they have the same stiffness co-efficient defined as ku . The two springs for the elbow joint also
use the same type of spring with the stiffness of kl . The objective of the exoskeleton is to reduce the
maximal muscle activation (MMA). The objective function is defined as
(M)
fi
min max f (x) =
x
∑ Ni
(5)
i
x = [F pre , k]
where F pre = [F1 , ..., F5 ] and k = [ku , kl ], which means there are 7 design variables for the problem. The
optimization problem is solved by the Complex method [4].

Results and Discussions

Maximal Muscle Activation
The maximal muscle activation is calculated for different nerve lesion conditions. We categorized the
muscles into groups according to the nerve root and origin, as shown in Table 1. The motion of picking
up a mobile and making a call is captured with the duration of 4.6 seconds. The payload is 0.5kg holding
at hand. The calculated MMA of different nerve lesion is shown in Fig. 4. Note that the case BASE
refers to the motion without any nerve lesion.
8
Before optimization
653.00 110.00 31.40 8.20 8.20 8.20
1 After optimization
7
0.9
6

Maximal Muscle Activation

0.8 0.76
5
Maximum Muscle Activity

0.7

0.6 4

0.5
3
0.4
2
0.3
0.23
0.2 1
0.13
0.1 0.09
0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5
0 Time [s]
BASE C5 C6 C7 C8 T1 PosteriorLateral Trunk Root

Figure 5. The comparison of the MMA after

Figure 4. Maximal MMA of different nerve lesion cases. optimization.

Optimization Results
For the case C8 in the motion of making a phone, we set a population number of 14 to the Complex
method for executing optimization. The objective convergence tolerance is 0.001, and the convergence
tolerance for the design variables is 0.1. The maximal MMA is reduced from 8.2 to 1.42 after optimiza-
tion with 269 iterations.
The optimal design variables are obtained as F pre = [23.7, 34.9, 3.3, 19.4, 10.5], and k = [58.8, 20.4].
The stiffness co-efficient is used to select springs for the exoskeleton. With the optimal parameters, the
MMA is calculated for the case without exoskeleton and the one with the optimal design, as plotted in
Fig. 5. Wearing the optimal designed exoskeleton, the patient can accomplished the motion of lifting the
arm and making a phone call.

Conclusions
A spring-loaded cable-driven exoskeleton was designed in this work. A musculoskeletal human arm
model was built to simulate the brachial plexus injury. The cable-driven exoskeleton model was integrat-
ed with the musculoskeletal model for dynamics simulation and design optimization of the exoskeleton.
Parameters of the exoskeleton were obtained through optimization. A prototype will be built to testify
the model and validate its application in patients’ daily living.

References
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[2] T. Rahman, W. Sample, S. Jayakumar, M. M. King, J. Y. Wee, R. Seliktar, M. Alexander, M. Scavina,

and A. Clark. Passive exoskeletons for assisting limb movement. Journal of Rehabilitation Research
& Development, 43(5):583–590, 2006.

[3] T. Lenzi, N. Vitiello, S. M. M. De Rossi, S. Roccella, F. Vecchi, and M. C. Carrozza. NEUROExos:

a variable impedance powered elbow exoskeleton. In Proceedings of IEEE International Conference
on Robotics and Automation, pages 1419–1426, Shanghai, China, 2011.

[4] M. J. Box. A new method of constrained optimization and a comparison with other methods. Com-
puter Journal, (8):42–52, 1965.