title: Variable Stiffness Structure for limb attachment.
abstract: In robotic rehabilitation, the way of attaching the robotic device to the users' limb constitutes a crucial element of product quality, particularly for assuring good fitting, comfort, accuracy, usability, and safety. In this article, we present a new technological concept - 'Variable Stiffness Structure' - allowing for an improvement of these aspects in the 'robotic device to limb' - connection by offering a compound of materials that are together able to switch from a flexible textile-like state to a more rigid state by applying negative pressure. The paper describes the concept and the basic behaviour of the material, based on experiments.
authors.affiliation: Health Division – Health Technologies Unit, Tecnalia Research and Innovation, Paseo Mikeletegi 1, 20009 Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain.
authors.forename: Maxime
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bureau
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Keller
authors.forename: Joel
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Perry
authors.forename: Rosemarie
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Velik
authors.forename: Jan F
authors.initials: JF
authors.lastname: Veneman
mesh_terms: D005121:Extremities / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*