The orthopaedic surgeon should be familiar with various supports and braces for the treatment of low back pain. Severe cases of spinal instability always need a Hohmann overbridging brace, whereas the milder form of motion-segment instability is treated with one of the elastic supports. In cases of osteoporosis of the spine and insufficiency of the lumbosacral junction the Lindemann 2/3 semi-el...

Humans and other animals walk in a way that minimizes energy consumption. We take advantage of inertial passive dynamics and elastic energy storage and return to create a walking pattern that is extremely economical [1]. A reduction in energy consumption during walking might be achieved by supplying external mechanical power to the joints of the lower limbs. With additional mechanical power app...

Health monitoring of engineering structures has gained a lot of interest over the last few years. Many engineering structures suffer damage and deterioration when exposed to various loading and environmental changes during their lifetime. This seriously affects structural performance and may even lead to catastrophic structural failures. Thus, inspection and testing of structural components for...

Joints within the Catskill Delta complex are believed to be natural hydraulic fractures and abundant indirect evidence supports this claim. The indirect evidence is based on many observations of joint surface morphology and joint spacing among other features. The Alleghanian orogeny left a unique imprint on the joint surfaces also, indicating a rotating horizontal compressive stress field. Nume...

This paper deals with force and impedance control of series elastic actuators for driving the joints of an exoskeleton for lower limbs. Series elastic actuators are devices where elastic components are introduced between the motor’s output and the load. From the deflection of these components, it is possible to measure the force applied to the load and to control it. Also, the mechanical impeda...

The optimal path planning for two flexible cooperating manipulators carrying a solid object on a prescribed tip trajectory has been studied using kinematic resolution. The formulation has been derived using the Pontryagin minimum principle that results in a two-point boundary value problem. Also, a numerical technique based on converting the abstract optimization to parametric optimization prob...

Abstract. This paper deals with robust H∞ force and impedance control of series elastic actuators. It is considered that the series elastic actuators are subject to parametric uncertainties and external disturbances. Robust controllers based on the H∞ criterion have been widely used among robotic applications for guaranteeing good disturbance rejection properties. The H∞ force and impedance con...