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ExoFlex: An Upper-Limb Cable-Driven Exosuit

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Robot 2019: Fourth Iberian Robotics Conference (ROBOT 2019)

Abstract

This paper presents ExoFlex, an upper-limb flexible exoskeleton (exosuit) intended for assistance in elbow and shoulder rehabilitation therapies. The soft nature of the device allows it to easily adapt to human biomechanics. The presented exosuit is equipped with a cable-driven transmission in which torque is generated by two direct current (DC) motors. A super-twisting sliding mode controller (SMC) has been simulated and implemented for elbow and shoulder flexion and extension movements. ExoFlex has proven to effectively assist its wearer in experimental tests.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, under the grant ExoFlex (DPI 2015-68842-R) and the I\(+\)D\(+\)I Own Program of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

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Correspondence to David Pont .

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Pont, D. et al. (2020). ExoFlex: An Upper-Limb Cable-Driven Exosuit. In: Silva, M., Luís Lima, J., Reis, L., Sanfeliu, A., Tardioli, D. (eds) Robot 2019: Fourth Iberian Robotics Conference. ROBOT 2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1093. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36150-1_34

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