Soft robots demonstrate an impressive ability to adapt objects and environments. However, current soft mobile often use a single mode of movement. This gives good locomotion performance in specific environments but poor others. In this paper, we propose leg–wheel mechanism inspired by bacterial flagella it design robot. employs tendon-driven continuum structure replicate the flagellar filaments...

Spasticity is a common consequence after spinal cord injury (SCI) that affects 53-78 % of individuals with SCI (Maynard, Karunas, & Waring, 1990). Spasticity is defined as increased tonic stretch reflexes and exaggerated tendon jerks (Lance, 1980). Rehabilitation modalities, pharmacologic intervention and surgery are three main therapeutic techniques for spasticity management (Adams & Hicks, 20...

Differential RNA metabolism regulates a wide array of developmental processes. Here, we describe a mechanism that controls the transition from premature Drosophila tendon precursors into mature muscle-bound tendon cells. This mechanism is based on the opposing activities of two isoforms of the RNA binding protein How. While the isoform How(L) is a negative regulator of Stripe, the key modulator...

Quadriceps tendinopathy in an increasingly recognized diagnosis can lead to quadriceps tendon rupture, especially in the older population. It can be caused by repeated micro trauma or also predisposed by systemic diseases such as diabetes mellitus and connective tissue disorders that can in turn lead to extensor mechanism deficits. Although a trial of conservative treatment is advocated, operat...

The exploration and inspection of narrow spaces in industrial plants require the use long-reach redundant manipulators with large three-dimensional (3D) workspaces. To this end, a previous work, coupled tendon-driven articulated manipulator total length 10 m yaw joints for 3D motion was developed. This study focuses on employing antagonistic tension joint to support tendon that drives pitch hig...

Introduction The heel rise test is commonly used as a strength test for the triceps surea muscle group but has also become widely used as a functional task to aid in the diagnosis of Posterior Tibial Tendon Dysfunction (PTTD) [1,2]. Although failure to invert the hindfoot during the heel rise test is reported to be a sign of failure in the posterior tibial muscle, posterior tibialis function ma...

INTRODUCTION Achilles tendon rupture is among the most frequent musculoskeletal injury, with over 1 million cases annualy in the United States alone [1]. Calf stretches and warm-up are routinely used by professional and recreational athletes as an injury prevention measure. Both londitudinal stretch training studies and accute calf stretching have shown to decrease tendon stiffness [2,3], repre...

ADROIT Manipulation platform is a pneumatically actuated, tendon driven 28 degree of freedom platform being developed for investigating complex hand manipulation behaviors. ADROIT derives its unique capabilities, necessary to support dynamic and dexterous manipulation, from a custom designed high performance pneumatic actuation system for tendon driven hands. The custom pneumatic actuation syst...

Slow and accurate finger and limb movements are essential to daily activities, but the underlying mechanics is relatively unexplored. Here, we develop a mathematical framework to examine slow movements of tendon-driven limbs that are produced by modulating the tendons’ stiffness parameters. Slow limb movements are driftless in the sense that movement stops when actuations stop. We demonstrate, ...