Diseño y construcción de un prototipo de exoesqueleto para la rehabilitación del miembro superior en niños.

Abstract

The present research was based on the design and construction of an exoskeleton prototype for the rehabilitation of the upper limb in children between 5 and 11 years of age, taking into account Ecuadorian anthropometry, the prototype made by 3D printing generates 4 basic rehabilitation movements for shoulder and elbow such as: shoulder abduction, shoulder extension and flexion, external rotation of the arm on its longitudinal axis, and elbow extension and flexion, an analytical analysis was carried out using the vector method where the trajectories to be fulfilled were obtained the prototype, For the analysis of forces, the Matlab and Adams view software was used in order to find the torque values required by each of the motors to generate the different movements, a mechanical resistance analysis was also carried out using finite elements with the ANSYS software , here von Misses stress values were obtained, well below the yield point of the 3D printing material (PLA), achieving the lowest element safety factor of 9.82, that is, the elements resist safely to the movements carried out, finally an analysis of functional tests was carried out where it was possible to verify that the prototype generates the shoulder abduction movements covering a field of 16.67%, the movement of shoulder extension and flexion covers a field of 78.26%, the movement of external rotation of the arm about its longitudinal axis covers a field of 90.91% and the movement of shoulder extension and flexion covers a field of 100 % with reference to the shoulder and elbow joint physiology.