TitanArm
TitanArm is a powered upper body exoskeleton developed by four students at the University of Pennsylvania over the course of 9 months. The suit is meant for people with upper body injuries (elbow or shoulder) and for heavy lifting applications. Titan Arm has been featured in Wired, Engadget, Gizmodo, BBC, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and multiple local news and internet publications. It has received multiple awards including the James Dyson Award (2013), an Edison Award (2014), a Popular Science Invention Award (2014), and First Place in the Cornell Cup (2013). More information can be found at our website.
TitanArm is not tethered to an external power source. It can run up six hours on a a single charge and it augments the user's bicep curl/tricep extension strength by an additional 40lbs. The suit also tracks the position and forces being exerted from both the user and the environment.
The motion of the suit is driven by a Maxon Brushed DC motor. The motor drives a spool which in turn transfers power into a flexible cable via a push-pull motion. The flexible cable ensures the user has a large range of motion in the shoulder joint while still being able to lift and hold a load.
While electric motors have come a long way, they are not suited to hold a sustained static load for prolonged periods of time. In order to be able to hold a heavy load, we incorporated a ratchet mechanism that can be engaged or disengaged at the user's discretion.
The suit was created to assist people with upper body injuries. Hall effect sensors track the angles of the shoulder and elbow at four locations in order to determine improvement in range of motion.
All components apart from circuit boards, the motor, and the cables were manufactured at Penn. Over 300 hours of machining time went into the production of the suit, and we leveraged all the capabilities we had at our disposal.