
Encasing the X-arm II
Full embodiment of a casing for a robotic exoskeleton arm

Design Goal
To encase the X-Arm II, an exoskeleton robotic arm with haptic feedback for use in the International Space Station. The robotic arm was a functional prototype with wires running everywhere. With a team of six students a functional, fully detailed and good looking encasing was designed and prototyped. The first phase was to understand the product and design a several concepts for the casing as a group. In the second phase I was responsible for detailing the part that encases the under- arm.Responsibility
Group work with six students, from idea to embodiment. I was mainly responsible for the part surrounding the fore arm.Client
ABB, the leading manufacturer of fast chargers for EV’s.


The two bottom right pictures are a good example of what I
learned. Learning surface modeling allowed me to create the desired shape with
clean lines.
Prototyping

In this project I made a functional prototype of the linear joint
to get a hands on feeling for the the shape in relation to a casing. For the casing
a protype was made with vacum molding and one with with FDM 3D printing in ABS.
Simulation

Together with a group member a heat analysis was done in
Solidworks. In this test the heat genereated by the electronic control chips was
analyzed. It showed that the casing around this part of the exoskeleton is expected
not to cause any overheating of the electronics.