Sustainable Design of Lower Limb Exoskeleton

Many personnel including army soldiers and laborers are required to carry heavy loads over rough terrain for a long distance. This is not just exhausting but also adversely affecting their physical health. This problem can be overcome by wearing an exoskeleton. An exoskeleton is a device that can be worn by individuals to support their bodies, especially while doing strenuous repetitive work and carrying heavy payloads. Most of the exoskeletons aimed to aid in carrying loads are actuated, that is, it uses an external source of power which adds a considerable amount of weight to the whole system making it counterproductive. Hence, this project aims to design a passive exoskeleton for the lower extremity that is hip, knee and ankle which uses no external source of power for load carrying applications. The base model which was designed based on the understanding of existing works was modified keeping in view of ergonomics and stability. Static structural analysis was performed on this revamped model to ensure that the design comes under the permissible stress. DFMA (Design For Manufacture and Assembly) analysis was also done to account for the costing aspects of the product and compared with the base model. The overall cost was thus reduced by 74.57%. As an effort to understand the adverse effects of the product on the environment, a sustainability analysis was also conducted. The results indicated that when the lower limb exoskeleton made of aluminium alloy was least harmful to the environment when compared with that made of stainless steel.