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A Shoulder Mechanisms For Assisting Upper Arm Function With Distally Located Actuators, Michael Jones

Honors College

This thesis presents a new design for a shoulder assistive device based on a modified double parallelogram linkage (DPL). The DPL allows for active support of the arm motion in the sagittal plane, while enabling the use of a distally located motor that can be mounted around the user’s waist to improve the weight distribution. The development of the DPL provides an unobtrusive mechanism for assisting the movement of the shoulder joint through a wide range of motion. This design contains three degrees-of-freedom (DOFs) and a rigid structure for supporting the arm. The modified DPL uses a cable-driven system to …