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Actuator and Contact Force Modeling of an Active Soft Brace for Scoliosis

Scoliosis is an abnormality of the spinal curvature that severely affects the musculoskeletal, respiratory, and nervous systems. Conventionally, it is treated using rigid spinal braces. These braces are static, rigid, and passive in nature, and they (largely) limit the mobility of the spine, resulti...

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Autores principales: Ali, Athar, Fontanari, Vigilio, Schmoelz, Werner, Fontana, Marco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9311770/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35877354
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering9070303
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author Ali, Athar
Fontanari, Vigilio
Schmoelz, Werner
Fontana, Marco
author_facet Ali, Athar
Fontanari, Vigilio
Schmoelz, Werner
Fontana, Marco
author_sort Ali, Athar
collection PubMed
description Scoliosis is an abnormality of the spinal curvature that severely affects the musculoskeletal, respiratory, and nervous systems. Conventionally, it is treated using rigid spinal braces. These braces are static, rigid, and passive in nature, and they (largely) limit the mobility of the spine, resulting in other spinal complexities. Moreover, these braces do not have precise control over how much force is being applied by them. Over-exertion of force may deteriorate the spinal condition. This article presents a novel active soft brace that allows mobility to the spine while applying controlled corrective forces that are regulated by varying the tensions in elastic bands using low-power light weight twisted string actuators (TSAs). This article focuses on the actuator and contact force modeling of the active soft brace (ASB). The actuator modeling is required to translate the twisting of string in terms of contraction of the string’s length, whereas the contact force modeling helps in estimating the net resultant force exerted by the band on the body using single point pressure/force sensors. The actuators (TSAs) are modeled as helix geometry and validated using a laser position sensor. The results showed that the model effectively tracked the position (contraction in length) with root mean square error (RMSE) of 1.7386 mm. The contact force is modeled using the belt and pulley contact model and validated by building a custom testbed. The actuator module is able to regulate the pressure in the range 0–6 Kpa, which is comparable to 0–8 Kpa pressure regulated in rigid braces. This makes it possible to verify and demonstrate the working principle of the proposed active soft brace.
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spelling pubmed-93117702022-07-26 Actuator and Contact Force Modeling of an Active Soft Brace for Scoliosis Ali, Athar Fontanari, Vigilio Schmoelz, Werner Fontana, Marco Bioengineering (Basel) Article Scoliosis is an abnormality of the spinal curvature that severely affects the musculoskeletal, respiratory, and nervous systems. Conventionally, it is treated using rigid spinal braces. These braces are static, rigid, and passive in nature, and they (largely) limit the mobility of the spine, resulting in other spinal complexities. Moreover, these braces do not have precise control over how much force is being applied by them. Over-exertion of force may deteriorate the spinal condition. This article presents a novel active soft brace that allows mobility to the spine while applying controlled corrective forces that are regulated by varying the tensions in elastic bands using low-power light weight twisted string actuators (TSAs). This article focuses on the actuator and contact force modeling of the active soft brace (ASB). The actuator modeling is required to translate the twisting of string in terms of contraction of the string’s length, whereas the contact force modeling helps in estimating the net resultant force exerted by the band on the body using single point pressure/force sensors. The actuators (TSAs) are modeled as helix geometry and validated using a laser position sensor. The results showed that the model effectively tracked the position (contraction in length) with root mean square error (RMSE) of 1.7386 mm. The contact force is modeled using the belt and pulley contact model and validated by building a custom testbed. The actuator module is able to regulate the pressure in the range 0–6 Kpa, which is comparable to 0–8 Kpa pressure regulated in rigid braces. This makes it possible to verify and demonstrate the working principle of the proposed active soft brace. MDPI 2022-07-11 /pmc/articles/PMC9311770/ /pubmed/35877354 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering9070303 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Ali, Athar
Fontanari, Vigilio
Schmoelz, Werner
Fontana, Marco
Actuator and Contact Force Modeling of an Active Soft Brace for Scoliosis
title Actuator and Contact Force Modeling of an Active Soft Brace for Scoliosis
title_full Actuator and Contact Force Modeling of an Active Soft Brace for Scoliosis
title_fullStr Actuator and Contact Force Modeling of an Active Soft Brace for Scoliosis
title_full_unstemmed Actuator and Contact Force Modeling of an Active Soft Brace for Scoliosis
title_short Actuator and Contact Force Modeling of an Active Soft Brace for Scoliosis
title_sort actuator and contact force modeling of an active soft brace for scoliosis
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9311770/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35877354
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering9070303
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