The Bridge - Issue 3, 2023 - 33

Chapter News
Soft Exosuit for Spinal Muscular Atrophy: Iota Delta
To encourage proposal submissions in strategic areas, EPICS
in IEEE holds competitions, such as their Access and Abilities
competition. University student teams from around the world
submit project ideas that are meant to improve accessibility
in many different ways, with the top proposals selected
for funding. This competition is an IEEE Foundation donor
supporter program funded by the Jon C. Taenzer Memorial
Fund established in 2019. This fund is specifically targeted
for engineering students in developing countries to support
breakthroughs to aid those who are disabled.
The Iota Delta Chapter of HKN at the Stevens Institute of
Technology is creating a Soft Exosuit for Spinal Muscular
Atrophy (SESMA). Damiano Zanotto, PhD, Associate
Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at
Stevens Institute of Technology, is in charge of the project.
Professor Zanotto's group at Stevens has been working with
Dr. Jacqueline Montes, who is faculty at Columbia University
Medical Center and an expert physiotherapist in the area
of neuromuscular disorders. To support their collaborative
projects, Zanotto and Montes have received research grants
from nonprofit organizations, including CureSMA and the
Muscular Dystrophy Association.
This project was awarded a grant of $4,000 as part of the
competition from EPICS in IEEE. Ten university students are
involved in the project, with two IEEE volunteers aiding in
the process.
The SESMA is an assistive device designed to aid ambulatory
patients with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). According to
the team, SMA mainly affects proximal muscles, such as the
muscles that flex the hip and extend the knee. This selective
muscle weakness makes it difficult for SMA patients to
walk, get up from a chair, and climb stairs as they get older.
The goal of the proposed solution device is to improve the
patient's ability to perform sit-to-stand tasks while being
minimally obtrusive.
A wearable technology that meets these needs, such as
the SESMA, has the potential to enhance the quality of life
of these individuals and their ability to walk. The proposed
SESMA design fills gaps that typical ambulatory aids such as
ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs), customized semi-rigid footwear
inserts, and crutches have. While these devices are helpful,
they call for movements to compensate, which can be
detrimental. Existing powered devices are also heavy and
bulky, which is not ideal for movement. SESMA has been
created to combat these issues and offer an alternative to
traditional designs.
The device has been created to be lightweight, semiactive,
and focus on knee extension when someone goes
from sitting to standing. SESMA is designed to be more
comfortable than other solutions as well. The SESMA itself is
similar to a pair of compression pants, with a cable that runs
down the back to a small actuation unit. The movement
of sitting activates the device, using force to compress a
spring located in the actuation unit of the exosuit with a
small pulley. The gravitational potential energy is converted
into elastic potential energy. Once the user sits down, the
complete clutch disengages the pulley from the spring.
SESMA is a soft exosuit to assist those with SMA Type in the sit-to-stand
movement through reducing total muscle activation and joint torque in the
hip, ankle, and knee.
For the standing motion, a different series of actions occur.
When the wearer goes to stand, the cable clutch is engaged,
and the motor clutch is disengaged. Then, the spring exerts
a tensile force on the exosuit cable. The routing path of the
exosuit cable is optimized so that a tensile force in the cable
generates moments about the hip and knee articulations,
which extend the two joints, helping the wearer stand
up. When the motion is completed, the pulley clutch is
disengaged so that it does not impede the user's motion.
Once the initial prototype is complete, testing will begin
following university lab guidance and review. The team is
also committed to sharing the designed resources and will
create a website to post the code and software for anyone
interested in continuing the project. The team's advisers will
also be responsible for the maintenance of the project and
are committed to following proper testing protocols to see if
this device can work in the broader community.
Both EPICS in IEEE and the wonderful members of IEEEEta
Kappa Nu have used their resources and knowledge to
improve communities around the world through the power
of engineering. While both projects are still underway, the
EPICS in IEEE committee is excited to see the final results
when the projects are complete.
HKN.ORG
33
https://epics.ieee.org/get-involved/access-and-abilities-competition/ https://epics.ieee.org/get-involved/access-and-abilities-competition/ https://hkn.ieee.org/
The Bridge - Issue 3, 2023

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