Exoskeleton for Paraplegics

Spinal cord injury (SCI) often leaves the patient with little to no chance of ever walking again. The Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) sought to help solve this problem with a motorized bionic exoskeleton at the 2016 Cybathlon in Zurich, Switzerland. Their ingenious exoskeleton suit, named Mina v2, uses electric actuators that attach to an individual's legs, moving the hip, knee and ankle joints, allowing an individual to walk without assistance.

Watch this video and learn directly from IHMC experts how FUTEK load cells and amplifiers are used to measure actuator forces in the motorized exoskeleton via a closed-loop control system for precise force control.

How it works :

An LCB200 series transducer is mounted on a specialized device attached to the motor, allowing it to rotate like a human joint, minimizing external loads and providing accurate load data.
As the motor operates, it applies force to the joint, causing it to rotate. This force is measured by the LCB200 miniature load cell.
The mV/V signal from the LCB200 sensor is sent to the IAA series analog amplifier or the IDA100 series digital amplifier.
The amplified signal is sent to the exoskeleton control system, using the amplified output of the load cell to close the loop and drive the exoskeleton motors.
With the IDA100, the amplifier output can be simultaneously monitored and adjusted on a Windows PC with FUTEK's SENSIT software while providing a high-speed amplified analog output.