I-Corps: Fiber-Reinforced Elasto-Fluidic Systems

目前提供给患者的矫形装置（纠正四肢或脊柱的疾病）非常不吸引人。这些器械都是笨重的大型机构，运动受限、疼痛、危险、见效缓慢。这个I-Corps团队开发了纤维增强弹性流体矫形器，重量轻，成本低，柔软，并且对人类互动安全。这种纤维增强弹性流体系统是一种软机械装置，其作用很像章鱼的手臂。该装置可以做得足够小，以保持低轮廓，同时产生足够的矫正力。所提出的技术还使身体的剩余自由度不受限制。该技术提供了开发各种应用程序的机会，这些应用程序为现有问题、新应用程序和现有设计提供了解决方案。本项目侧重于纤维增强弹性流体技术的应用和市场开发。纤维增强弹性流体系统结合了纤维的高应变能利用率和柔韧性，流体的多功能性和压缩载荷能力，以及软材料的连续特性，充分利用了两者的最佳特性。这些特性和其他特性结合在一起，使弹性流体系统没有接触摩擦和损失，没有关节间隙，尺寸可扩展，对人类互动安全，对冲击有弹性，适应外力和约束，成本低，功率密度高。这些系统具有广泛的力和运动，能够并行组合，形成复杂的形状，并且消除了对几何或机械优势的后续机构的需要。密歇根大学开发的弹性流体技术将流体压力转化为广泛的力和三维运动学运动，远远超出了现有气动肌肉的范围。

Orthosis devices (to correct disorders of limbs or spine) currently being provided to patients are very unappealing. The devices are heavy, large mechanisms that are excessively restrictive of motion, painful, dangerous, and slow to provide results. This I-Corps team has developed fiber-reinforced elasto-fluidics orthosis devices that are lightweight, low cost, soft, and safe for human interaction. The fiber-reinforced elasto-fluidic systems are soft mechanical devices that act much like the arm of an octopus. The device can be made small enough to maintain a low profile while generating sufficient corrective force. The proposed technology also enables the remaining degrees of freedom of the body to be unrestricted. This technology provides the opportunity to develop a wide range of applications that provide solutions to existing problems, novel applications, and enhancements to existing designs.This project focuses on the development of fiber-reinforced elasto-fluidic technology for applications and markets that it can benefit. The fiber-reinforced elasto-fluidic systems combine the high strain energy utilization and flexibility of fibers, the versatility and compressive load abilities of fluids, and the continuum nature of soft materials, exploiting the best features of each. These properties and others combine to make elasto-fluidic systems without contact friction and losses, free of joint backlash, scalable in size, safe for human interaction, resilient to impact, adaptable to external forces and constraints, low cost, and high in power density. These systems have a wide range of forces and motions, are able to be combined in parallel, form complex shapes, and eliminate the need for subsequent mechanisms for geometric or mechanical advantage. The elasto-fluidic technology developed at the University of Michigan converts fluid pressure into a wide range of forces and three-dimensional kinematic motions well beyond the scope of existing pneumatic muscles.