A sit-to-stand assist device can serve the needs of people suffering from muscle weakness due to age or disabilities that make sit-to-stand a difficult functional task. The objective of this paper is to design a passive gravity-balancing assist device for sit-to-stand motion. In our study, it has been shown that the contribution to the joint torques by the gravitational torque is dominant during sit-to-stand motion. On the basis of this result, a gravity balanced assistive device is proposed. This passive device uses a hybrid method to identify the center-of-mass of the system using auxiliary parallelograms first. Next, appropriate springs are connected to the device to make the total potential energy of the system due to the gravity and the springs constant during standing up. A demonstration prototype with the underlying principles was fabricated to test the feasibility of the proposed design. The prototype showed gravity balancing and was tested by the authors. This prototype will be modified appropriately for clinical testing.
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e-mail: fattah@me.udel.edu
e-mail: agrawal@me.udel.edu
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September 2006
Research Papers
Design of a Passive Gravity-Balanced Assistive Device for Sit-to-Stand Tasks
Abbas Fattah,
Abbas Fattah
Research Scientist
Mechanical Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
e-mail: fattah@me.udel.edu
University of Delaware
, Newark, DE 19716
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Sunil K. Agrawal,
Sunil K. Agrawal
Professor
Mechanical Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
e-mail: agrawal@me.udel.edu
University of Delaware
, Newark, DE 19716
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Glenn Catlin,
Glenn Catlin
Mechanical Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Delaware
, Newark, DE 19716
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John Hamnett
John Hamnett
Mechanical Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Delaware
, Newark, DE 19716
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Abbas Fattah
Research Scientist
Mechanical Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Delaware
, Newark, DE 19716e-mail: fattah@me.udel.edu
Sunil K. Agrawal
Professor
Mechanical Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Delaware
, Newark, DE 19716e-mail: agrawal@me.udel.edu
Glenn Catlin
Mechanical Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Delaware
, Newark, DE 19716
John Hamnett
Mechanical Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Delaware
, Newark, DE 19716J. Mech. Des. Sep 2006, 128(5): 1122-1129 (8 pages)
Published Online: October 10, 2005
Article history
Received:
March 31, 2005
Revised:
October 10, 2005
Citation
Fattah, A., Agrawal, S. K., Catlin, G., and Hamnett, J. (October 10, 2005). "Design of a Passive Gravity-Balanced Assistive Device for Sit-to-Stand Tasks." ASME. J. Mech. Des. September 2006; 128(5): 1122–1129. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.2216732
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