Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS), the University of Tübingen, and the University of Stuttgart under the Bionic Intelligence Tübingen Stuttgart (BITS) collaboration want to change this. The team equipped a biorobotic arm with two strands of artificial muscles strapped along the forearm. As can be seen in this video, the biorobotic arm – here dubbed the mechanical patient – simulates a tremor. Several real tremors were recorded and projected onto the biorobotic arm which then mirrors how each patient shakes the wrist and hand. However, once the tremor suppression is activated, the lightweight artificial muscles, which are made of electro-hydraulic actuators, contract and relax in such a way as to compensate for the back-and-forth movement. Now, the tremor can hardly be felt or seen.
Credits
MPI-IS / W. Scheible
With this arm, the team wants to achieve two goals: First, the team sees their biorobotic arm as a platform for other scientists in the field to test new ideas in assistive exoskeleton technology. Together with their biomechanical computer simulations, developers can quickly validate how well their soft artificial muscles perform, thereby avoiding time-consuming and costly clinical testing on real patients – which in some countries is not even legally possible.
Furthermore, the arm serves as a test bed for the artificial muscles the Robotic Materials Department at MPI-IS is well known for in the scientific community. Over the years, these so-called HASELs have been fine-tuned and improved. It is the team’s vision for HASELs to one day become the building blocks of an assistive wearable device that tremor patients can comfortably wear to be able to better cope with everyday tasks such as holding a cup.
