From the Make: Blog,
Using the BeagleBone to Control a Powerful Upper Body Exoskeleton
Nick McGill is a senior Mechanical and Electrical Engineering student at the University of Pennsylvania.
"My senior design team at the University of Pennsylvania has developed a powered upper body exoskeleton for use in physical therapy and assistive mobility applications. We’ve named the suit Titan after the powerful deities of incredible strength and stamina in Greek mythology."
The exoskeleton in action:
Here's how the Beagle is involved:
Our exoskeleton runs off a master BeagleBone microcomputer running Ubuntu Linux. Thanks to Alexander Hiam, we’re running the entire system using PyBBIO, an open-source Python library for BeagleBone control. A control loop takes velocity input from the joystick on a hand-held controller and filtered absolute positioning from a rotary potentiometer (mounted at the end of the motor shaft) to compute motor PWM signals. The BeagleBone also controls the brake for the ratchet system — the rocker switch manipulates a servo motor to actuate the pawl.
More information is found on the website: http://titanarm.com/
Cheers.
Drew
