Series Elastic Actuation (SEA)

Iris Magnusdottir · Post by **Iris Magnusdottir** » Thu Jul 02, 2020 10:34 am

Hi OpenSim community.

I am interested in simulating the effect of an ankle exoskeleton featuring a series elastic actuation (SEA), that is, where an active motor is connected in series with a passive spring, as shown in figure below.

I believe OpenSim does not have an inbuilt function for this so my goal is to either add:
a) linear spring (PathSpring) + torsional motor
b) torsional spring + linear motor (PathActuator)

and then somehow convert the torsional actuator (spring or motor) to a linear one, for my discussion.

So my question is this, what would be the most appropriate actuators to use here? OpenSim has few, for example TorqueActuator, CoordinateActuator, CoordinateLimitForce, SpringGeneralizedForce and the PathSpring and PathActuator, and probably more.

Any comments more than appreciated.
Thanks!
Iris