Robotic Ankle Exoskeleton, 2015
Work by the MIT Media Lab Biomechatronics Group demonstrated the first net-metabolic gain powered ankle exoskeleton. In this project, I designed a test platform which simulated the exoskeleton as it cycled through thousands of steps in order to determine when various components would fail.
The housing was designed via Solidworks and precision machined. The motor was controlled via PSoc and could emulate various walking paradigms. A customizable spring system provided a precise means of varying resistive forces. The system utilized current sensors and thermal models to automatically determine whether the system had failed.