Mathematical Modeling and Characterization of a Wearable Soft Robotic Device for Muscle Mechanotherapy

Treatments of disuse-induced muscle atrophy entail unmet clinical needs due to the lack of medical devices capable of mimicking physicians manual therapies. Therefore, in this paper we develop and model a wearable soft pneumatic elastomeric actuator to perform deep cyclic compression stimuli on human soft tissues for muscle rehabilitation by mechanotherapy. Static and dynamic characterization of the prototype demonstrate a 2.5 mm active deformation at 100 kPa with 600 mm³/s and a 5 Hz bandwidth. We estimate the transfer function of the experimentally acquired pressure, flow and deformation signals, processed by a Gaussian kernel-based approach. Our mathematical model accurately describes the actuator behavior and enables to extract its mechanical parameters. Then, through computational simulations, we illustrate its efficacy in emulating multiple complex bio-inspired movements. Our proposed methodology aims to improve the control efficiency in wearable soft robotics for muscle atrophy treatment.