A study for practical use of metal hydride actuators having high performances used for assistive devises

这个项目的一个目的已经按照我们三年前制定的时间表完成了。研制了一种高功率金属氢化物(MH)致动器，并利用该致动器设计了一台样机。一家医院的物理治疗师从可用性的角度对转移进行了评估。在此基础上，对样机进行了改进，使其实用化。为设计一种用于康复用途的聚合物薄膜软MH驱动器进行了基础性研究。确定了软驱动器的最佳聚合物材料，并对其推力、速度和氢气泄漏等力学特性进行了测试。结果表明，与传统的MH驱动器相比，MH驱动器的重量减轻了1/20，推力增大了2倍，速度提高了2倍，价格也大大降低。以上两个结果表明，使用新型MH驱动器的康复装置和转接辅助装置将在不久的将来实现实用化。

A purpose of this project has been completed according to a schedule that we set up three year ago. A high power metal hydride (MH) actuator was developed and a prototype transfer aid was also designed using the actuator. The transfer was evaluated at a hospital by physical therapists from a point of view of usability. Furthermore, the prototype was improved based on the evaluation results in order to make it practical use.A basic study was carried out to design a soft MH actuator made of a polymer film for rehabilitation use. The optimal polymer material was determined for the soft actuator and some mechanical characteristics regarding thrust, speed, and hydrogen gas leak were measured. From the results, it was proved that the weight is 1/20 lighter, the thrust is 2 times larger, the speed is 2 times higher, and the price is much lower than the conventional MH actuator.The above two results show that the rehabilitation apparatus and the transfer aid using the new MH actuators will be designed for practical use in the near future.