Exoskeleton Design Project
Problem statement
Imagine that one day you couldn’t stretch your arms up to relax and then the next day you couldn’t reach the cupboard anymore and before you knew it you’d lost all your upper body strength. Our client faces this misfortune as a result of Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), a disease that takes away physical strength by affecting the motor nerve cells in the spinal cord [1]. Two current products in the market that aim to give the user assistance with shoulder movement are EksoUe and ShoulderX, which both allow for easier movement, but rely on passive movement. These designs, however, are not usable in his wheelchair, be able to independently equip it, as he desires, and can be quite costly, ranging from $4000 to $100,000 [2][3]. However, our solution to this is to create an exoskeleton that can allow for some motion to return to his arm so that our client can be able to participate in daily tasks that many of us are able to take for granted. Our design would allow for him to independently set up the machine on his own as well as build mobility and strength into his arm with the hopes that one day he could regain muscle movement independently. We are conceptualizing, designing, and manufacturing an exoskeleton for a man with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) to aid in his everyday life. [1]https://www.curesma.org/about-sma/#:~:text=Spinal%20muscular%20atrophy%20(SMA)%20is,neuron%20gene%201%20(SMN1). [2]https://www.dropbox.com/s/uxjwj9dkvzn3a0o/2018_HFES_suit_shoulderX.pdf?dl=0 [3]https://eksobionics.com/eksoue/
Team members
Christian Thorpe – leader
Keon Ahn – communicator
Zach Cooper – accountant
John McGinley – admin
Japheth Patterson