Â鶹AV

Addition of Abdominal Muscles into a Robotic Spine

Project Goal

The Musculoskeletal Biomechanics research lab at Â鶹AV has a model of a human spine and wants to be able to perform experiments on it to better understand how the spine supports itself under loading. Our team's job was to add the presence of the abdomen, which plays an important role in spinal stabilization through increase intraabdominal pressure (IAP).

The final design consists of muscle bands representing the three main abdominal muscle groups: transverse, obliques, and rectus abdominis. These muscle bands contract and relax in a similar manner to real muscles because of nitinol springs that are attached to the ends of the bands. Nitinol is a shape memory alloy, so when current is passed through it, the spring heats up and contracts, pulling the muscle bands tight.

The current through the nitinol springs is controlled using an Arduino microcontroller. The current in each muscle group is modulated between 1 and 0 to control the speed of contraction.

The final model can measure the IAP in the stomach cavity when the muscles are relaxed and when they are flexed. As expected, the IAP consistently increased as the muscles contracted.

Model of a robotic spine to the right of a poster boardÌý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý Ìý ÌýÌýClose up of the robotic spine Ìý Ìý Ìý


Team

Client and academic advisor: Prof. Mark Driscoll

Students stand to the right of their capstone project with a model of their robotic spine and poster board

Student team (from left to right):ÌýBenjamin Barrett, Nicole Thoma, Claire Shewchuk, Langdon Kay

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Award

The project was awarded the third place Medtec Design award, which looked at all medical technology capstone design projects in the Faculty of Engineering at Â鶹AV in 2022.

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