A vacuum-powered artificial muscle designed for infant rehabilitation

• Autores: Jaén Mendoza, Mijaíl, Dutra Gollob, Samuel, Lavado, Diego, Koo, Bon Ho Brandon, Cruz, Segundo, Roche, Ellen T., Vela Saavedra, Emir Augusto
• Formato: artículo
• Fecha de Publicación: 2021
• Institución: Universidad de Ingeniería y tecnología
• Repositorio: UTEC-Institucional
• Lenguaje: inglés
• OAI Identifier: oai:repositorio.utec.edu.pe:20.500.12815/546
• Enlace del recurso: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12815/546; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12080971
• Nivel de acceso: acceso abierto
• Materia: Pneumatic artificial muscles; Infant rehabilitation; Vacuum-powered actuators; https://purl.org/pe-repo/ocde/ford#2.03.01

The majority of soft pneumatic actuators for rehabilitation exercises have been designed for adult users. Specifically, there is a paucity of soft rehabilitative devices designed for infants with upper and lower limb motor disabilities. We present a low-profile vacuum-powered artificial muscle (LP-VPAM) with dimensions suitable for infants. The actuator produced a maximum force of 26 N at vacuum pressures of −40 kPa. When implemented in an experimental model of an infant leg in an antagonistic-agonist configuration to measure resultant knee flexion, the actuator generated knee flexion angles of 43° and 61° in the prone and side-lying position, respectively