Xiaomin Ji

With the increasing utilization of portable electronic devices and wearable technologies, the field of human motion energy harvesting has gained significant attention. These devices have the potential to efficiently convert the mechanical energy generated by human motion into electrical energy, enabling a continuous power supply for low-power devices. This paper provides an overview of the fundamental principles underlying various energy harvesting modes, including friction-based, electromagnetic, and piezoelectric mechanisms, and categorizes existing energy harvesting devices accordingly. Furthermore, this study conducts a comprehensive analysis of key techniques in energy harvesting, such as mode selection, efficiency enhancement, miniaturized design of devices, and evaluation of energy harvesting experiments. It also compares the distinct characteristics of different energy harvesting modes. Finally, the paper summarizes the challenges faced by these devices in terms of integrating human biomechanics, achieving higher energy harvesting efficiencies, facilitating micro-miniaturization, enabling composite designs, and exploring broader applications. Moreover, it offers insights into the future development of human motion energy harvesting technology, laying a theoretical framework and providing a reference for future research endeavors in this field.

Building accurate model and studying the biomechanical properties of the knee joint is very important for the prevention of knee joint disease, sports injury, and knee joint rehabilitation, and also useful to design and manufacture for personalized knee prosthesis. In this study, the motion capture system and plantar pressure test system were used to collect the data of volunteers in a single gait cycle. The 3D finite element model of the knee joint was reconstructed using MRI scanning images and the finite element numerical simulation was performed. The results show that (1) Maximum stress of medial meniscus, lateral meniscus, ACL and PCL were 9.27MPa, 6.24MPa, 2.06MPa and 2.15MPa, respectively, which were obtained at 50% of a single gait cycle. (2) Maximum stress of MCL and LCL were 0.47MPa and 0.83MPa, respectively, which were obtained at 20% of a single gait cycle. It can be concluded that method proposed in this paper could accurately analyse the biomechanical properties of the knee joint during the gait cycle, and the method for analyzing the limit position of the gait cycle could reflect the variation of the contact stress in knee joint.

Human body enhancement is an interesting branch of robotics. It focuses on wearable robots in order to improve the performance of human body, reduce energy consumption and delay fatigue, as well as increase body speed. Robot-assisted equipment, such as wearable exoskeletons, are wearable robot systems that integrate human intelligence and robot power. After careful design and adaptation, the human body has energy-saving sports, but it is an arduous task for the exoskeleton to achieve considerable reduction in metabolic rate. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the biomechanics of human sports, the body, and its weaknesses. In this study, a lower limb exoskeleton was classified according to the power source, and the working principle, design idea, wearing mode, material and performance of different types of lower limb exoskeletons were compared and analyzed. The study shows that the unpowered exoskeleton robot has inherent advantages in endurance, mass, volume, and cost, which is a new development direction of robot exoskeletons. This paper not only summarizes the existing research but also points out its shortcomings through the comparative analysis of different lower limb wearable exoskeletons. Furthermore, improvement measures suitable for practical application have been provided.

On the basis of analyzing the movement law of 3D circular braided yarn, the three-cell model of 3D five-direction circular braiding composite material is established. By analyzing the node position relationship in various cell models, the calculation formulas of braiding angle, cell volume, fiber volume and fiber volume content in various cell models are obtained. It is found that there are four different braiding angles in four internal cells, and the braiding angles in internal cells gradually increase from inside to outside. The braiding angles of upper and lower surface cells are approximately equal. With the increase of the length of the knuckles, the braiding angles of each cell decrease, and the braiding angles of the four inner cells decrease greatly, while the braiding angles of upper and lower surfaces decrease slightly. The results of parametric analysis showed that with the increase of the length of the knuckles and the inner diameter of cells, the mass of cells increased proportionally, while the total fiber volume content of cells decreased. With the increase of braiding yarn number and axial yarn number, the unit cell mass decreases in direct proportion, and the unit cell total fiber volume content increases. Through the research results of this paper, the geometrical characteristics of the cell model under different braided parameters can be obtained, which greatly improves the analysis efficiency.

This article aims to study the reduction design of fragile buffer packaging under the concept of green development. Through the analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of existing cushioning packaging materials, in view of the current situation that corrugated paper cushioning packaging uses a lot of materials, and the cumbersome molding has led to the wide application of plastic packaging materials, the design principle of fragile cushioning packaging under the green development concept is proposed. Taking glass cups as the design object and corrugated paper as packaging materials, three different prototype glass buffer packagings were designed. The reduced-quantity design of corrugated cardboard buffer packaging provides a solution for replacing plastic with paper. From an environmental and economic point of view, reduced-quantity buffer packaging is feasible.

Aiming at car design, a parametric design method is proposed in this paper. There are two contents in this method, a novel parametric surface, a shape-adjustable automobile styling template, and a design method of integrating the two contents. The surface termed extended SQ-Coons surface constructed in this paper has the advantage of being fine adjusted while always interpolating at the given boundary curves, which is suitable for its application in automobile modeling design. Matching with the surface, a car model template built by multiple quadrilateral surfaces is proposed. The car models built by the template could achieve the parametric adjustability of all modeling features on the premise of maintaining continuity between subsurfaces. Finally, after the integration of the surface and the template, a whole set of parametric automobile surface modeling design method is proposed. In this method, the overall shape of the car body is determined through multi angle hand drawing, and curve control points, segmentation parameters, and shape parameters are used to adjust the detail modeling. The final results show that the novel surface and template proposed could be used to parametrically establish the vehicle models of various shapes and improve the design efficiency in the conceptual design stage.

The parametric method of product design is a pivotal and practical technique in computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM) and used in many manufacturing sectors. In this paper, we presented a novel parametric method to design a kitchen product in the residential environment, a kitchen cabinet, by using cubic T-Bézier curves with constraints of geometric continuities. First, we introduced a class of cubic T-Bézier curves with two shape parameters and derived the G¹ and G² continuity conditions of the cubic T-Bézier curves. Then, we constructed shape-controlled complex contour curves of the kitchen cabinet by using closed composite cubic T-Bézier curves. The shapes of the contour curves can be adjusted intuitively and predictably by altering the values of the shape parameters. Finally, we studied shape optimization and representation of ellipses for the contour curves of the kitchen cabinet by finding optimal shape parameters and applicable control points respectively. The provided modeling examples showed that our method in this paper can improve the design and scheme adjustment effectively in the conceptual design stage of kitchen products.

In order to understand the regularity of human motion, characteristic description is widely used in gait analysis. For completely expressing gait information and providing more concise indicators, parametric description is also particularly significant as a means of analysis. Therefore, in this paper, the mathematical models of gait curves based on the generalized extension-Bézier curve were investigated, of which the shape parameters were used as individual gait characteristics to distinguish whether the gait is normal or not and to assist in judging rehabilitation. To evaluate the models, angle data from three joints (hip, knee, and ankle) were recorded with motion capture system when participants (10 healthy males and 6 male patients with ankle fracture) were walking at comfortable velocity along a walkway. Then, the shape parameters of each subject were obtained by applying the mathematical models, and the parameter range of the normal group was further summarized. Through comparison, it could be found that most shape parameters of patients exceed the normal ranges in varying degrees, and are concentrated on specific parameters. The results can not only help to judge the recovery stages of patients but also figure out the corresponding abnormal postures, so as to provide guidance for rehabilitation training.