Mathematical Modeling of a Hand Crank Generator for Powering Lower-Limb Exoskeletons

Publication date: Available online 11 July 2016 Source:Perspectives in Science Author(s): Ashish Singla, Saurav Dhand, Gurvinder Singh Virk With advances in technology and ageing societal concerns growing, personal care devices are gaining importance globally. One such area is lower-limb exoskeletons, used to assist persons to move around for normal daily living. Most of the commercially available assistive exoskeletons use rechargeable Li-Ion batteries, which require frequent charging to meet the operational needs. Charging becomes a problem when a person relying on a mobility exoskeleton has to go outdoors for shopping or a leisure walk. Experimental data from on-going research to develop assistive mobility exoskeletons for elderly persons indicates that, the power required for exoskeletons is around 45-60 W which falls in the output range of hand-crank generators. So use of hand-crank generators as a charging source is discussed. In this work, we develop a mathematical model to investigate the potential of hand-crank devices in charging mobility exoskeletons and to give relation between input cranking speed and output charging power, and estimate the cranking time.

Source: Perspectives in Science - July 14, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: research