Optical Sensor Assembly On Knee Brace For Continuous Knee Monitoring Application

Knee joint is an important part of human body. People with poor knee condition generally have limited physical movement, rendering to mental stress and agony. Knee pain can be categorized into three groups, known as acute injury, chronic injury and medical condition. Current technology to support the knee diagnosis and treatment procedures are limited to the use of manual goniometer, x-ray and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Alternative devices with continuous measurement capability for knee monitoring are minimum at this time, mainly due to the difficulties to cover the wide angle of the knee flexion. X-ray and MRI technologies are useful to have some insight on the knee problem, but they are not applicable for continuous monitoring. Aside from being expensive for general use of MRI, x-ray on the other hand can cause short-term side effects due to radiation exposure. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the use of optical sensor integrated with mechanical gear system as a knee monitoring device. A plastic compartment, made by using 3D printer is used to place the sensor and the gear system. The design of the overall device allows direct attachment on a knee brace for easy placement on the knee. Based on current study, the proposed sensor has a range of motion between 0 deg. to 160 deg., 0.08 deg. resolution as well as support continuous monitoring of the knee. The sensor performance has been demonstrated for gait motion, ascending and descending stairs, sit-to-stand movement and maximum knee flexion applications.

Bending-torsional-axial-pendular nonlinear dynamic modeling and frequency response analysis of a marine double-helical gear drive system considering backlash

The double-helical gear system was widely used in ship transmission. In order to study the influence of backlash on the nonlinear frequency response characteristics of marine double-helical gear system, according to the structural characteristics of double-helical gear transmission, considering the time-varying meshing stiffness, backlash, damping, comprehensive transmission error, external load excitation, and other factors, a three-dimensional bending-torsional-axial-pendular coupling nonlinear dynamic modeling and dynamic differential equation of 24-DOF double-helical gear transmission system were established. The Runge–Kutta numerical method was used to analyze the influence of backlash, time-varying meshing stiffness, damping, error and external load excitation on the amplitude frequency characteristics. The results show that the backlash can cause the runout of the double-helical gear system, and the system has first harmonic and second harmonic response. With the increase of backlash, the amplitude of the system increases and the jumping phenomenon remains unchanged. The amplitude frequency response of the system is stimulated by time-varying meshing stiffness and comprehensive transmission error, and restrained by damping and external load excitation. The vibration displacement amplitude of the system increases with the increase of vibration displacement and has little effect on the state change of the system. The vibration test of double-helical gear is carried out. The frequency response components obtained by numerical simulation are basically consistent with the experimental results, which proves the correctness of the theoretical calculation. It provides a technical basis for the study of vibration and noise reduction performance of double-helical gear.

Nonlinear Dynamics Analysis of Multifactor Low Speed Heavy Load Gear System with Temperature Effect Considered

Low-speed and heavy-duty gears will generate a lot of heat during meshing transmission, which will cause thermal deformation of the gears and affect the transmission performance of the gear system. It is of great significance to explore the influence of temperature effects on the nonlinear dynamics of the gear system. Taking the spur gear system as the research object, considering the nonlinear factors such as time-varying meshing stiffness, tooth backlash and comprehensive error, and introducing the influence of temperature change, the nonlinear dynamic model of the gear system is established, using 4~5th order Runge -Kutta algorithm performs simulation calculation on the model, combined with bifurcation diagram, maximum Lyapunov exponent diagram, phase diagram and Poincare section diagram, etc., to analyze the influence of temperature changes and time-varying stiffness coefficients on the motion characteristics of the gear system. The results show that the influence of temperature change on the gear system is related to the value of the time-varying stiffness coefficient. The larger the value, the more obvious the influence of temperature change; the system will show different dynamic response with the change of the time-varying stiffness coefficient, including four states of single-period motion, multiple-period motion, bifurcation and chaotic motion. The relevant conclusions can provide references for the design of gear systems under special working conditions.

Dynamic Characteristic Analysis of Spur Gear System Considering Tooth Contact State Caused by Shaft Misalignment

Shaft misalignment will change the gear contact state, and then leads to the variation of the internal stiffness excitation of the gear pair, and finally the dynamic characteristics of the gear system will be affected. However, the influence of the gear contact state change on stiffness is usually neglected in the traditional stiffness calculation model for misaligned gears, and the underlying influence mechanism of the gear contact state changes aroused by the shaft misalignment on the dynamic characteristics of gear system is still unclear. To address these shortcomings, traditional loaded tooth contact analysis (LTCA) model is improved with the influences of fillet foundation deformation taken into consideration. Combined with the improved LTCA model, a new mesh stiffness calculation model for misaligned gear considering the tooth contact state is proposed, and then the effects of the contact state changes aroused by the shaft misalignment on the mesh stiffness excitation are studied. Moreover, a dynamic model of misaligned gear system with 8 degree of freedom (DOF) is established, and the dynamic characteristics of the system are simulated and finally verified by experiment. The results show that the proposed model can be used to evaluate the dynamic characteristics of the misaligned gear system with the change of gear tooth contact state taken into consideration. This study provides a theoretical method for the evaluation and identification of the shaft misalignment error.

TOOTH CONTACT ANALYSIS OF A DESIGNED PLANETARY GEAR DRIVE FOR THE VEHICLE INDUSTRY

A planetary gear drive consists of a sun gear, planet pinions and an internal gear. We designed a complex gear system which is usable in the field of the vehicle industry into the automatized robots. The system was designed by GearTeq software which is connected with the SolidWorks designer software. After the assembly and the motion simulations tooth contact analysis (TCA) was made to analyse the normal stresses and the normal deformations on the connecting surface of the planet pinions and the internal gear by different load moments.

SMART WHEELCHAIR/VEHICLE FOR PHYSICALLY CHALLENGED PEOPLE WITH REVERSE GEAR OPERATION

This paper aims to design the vehicle for the physically challenged person with reverse gear system. This proposed vehicle helps them not to believe any third persons to require a reverse gear. Here we used \"tumbler gear” mechanism for our prototype where the gear is accustomed by changing the direction of gear. It contains two gears which place in parallel by changing their position with motor direction; that are often changed but in real time application we\'d wish to use ideal gear system with gear box. Also the bike contains ultrasonic sensor which supports echo signals to supply alert on taking reverse to avoid collision between other object. this technique also contains \"GPS\" which help their family to locate the position of the physically challenged person just easily. in case of any emergency, an ultrasonic sensor, GPS module and relay circuits are employed to drive the motor in our prototype.