Industrial exoskeletons are increasingly used in a wide range of applications. The paper presents a prototype industrial exoskeleton supporting the wearer's trunk. In particular, the paper illustrates the optimization of the multifunction actuation units positioned on each hip to provide three operating modes: allowing the wearer's legs to move freely during emergencies, assisting the wearer's trunk movements, and supporting the wearer's trunk in tasks that involve bending forward while stationary. Actuation unit optimization focused on reducing axial dimensions to design an efficient layout for all components. Results of the study were highly promising, as an original final actuation unit configuration was developed.

The paper presents an innovative automatic tomato grafting machine prototype developed following an extensive investigation on devices involved in grafting operations. The machine features a modular structure, with a module dedicated specifically to picking up the seedlings and cutting and splicing the rootstock and scion. One or more modules can be connected in parallel to a station which sorts, loads and unloads the seedlings. The grafting module has an innovative geometry and cutting station, original geometries of the gripper fingers (realised after several studies and tests) and it is controlled by means of an electro-pneumatic circuit and a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller). The system showed a good performance in the preliminary tests here presented, carried out on this grafting module.

Some researcher groups in the Department of Mechanics and Aerospace Engineering (DIMEAS) Politecnico di Torino have an interesting experience with the applications of automatic systems in the agriculture fields [1-6].

This paper presents the study and the project of an innovative experimental simulator useful to experiment pesticide spraying techniques in vineyard using drones.The project was about: the study of the hydraulic circuit used to spray the pesticide, the drone characteristics, the vineyard characteristics and dimensions.This experimental simulator allows to modify and to test the flight height of the drone from the soil, the advancement velocity of the drone, the effect of the drone rotors, the number and the position of the spraying nozzles, their supply pressure and flowrate, using an original and innovative vineyard simulator designed by the authors.The dimensions of the experimental simulator is suitable to use it in a laboratory.The control of this experimental simulator was designed following a specific flowchart that allows preliminary to configurate the bench and to carry out the tests.The vine leaves were simulated using hydro sensible papers or real vine leaves.Using both these solutions authors want to test the performance of the hydraulic circuits and the distribution of the droplets in the crop.The vineyard is simulated with a structure designed in real scale (1:1), whose dimensions was obtained from a real crop.This structure allows to change the collocation of the devices used to test the hydraulics circuits and simulating the vine leaves.

This paper describes the development and study of a finite element numerical model (FEM) of a rotary harrow. A proper use of a rotary harrow depends on its geometry and its operating parameters, such as drag speed and angular speed. The aim of this work is to develop a rotary harrow model in the ANSYS environment in order to analyse and optimize its geometric parameters. After validating the model through a comparison with some experimental data, it was used to analyse the forces exchanged between the tines and the soil as a function of drag speed, angular speed and working depth. Different tine orientations and three different types of terrain were considered.

The development of innovative robotic devices allows the design of exoskeletons for robotic neurorehabilitation training. This paper presents the active exoskeleton called pneumatic interactive gait rehabilitation orthosis (P.I.G.R.O.), developed by the authors. The main innovative characteristic of this prototype is its design for fully unloaded robotic neurorehabilitation training, specific for brain-injured patients. It has six degrees of freedom (DOF) in the sagittal plane, an active ankle joint (removable if it is required); a wide range of anthropometric regulations, both for men and for women; a useful human machine interface (HMI); and an innovative harness system for the patient for the unloaded training. It is realized using light and strong materials, and it is electropneumatically controlled. In particular the authors also studied and defined some innovative input control curves useful for the unloaded training. In this paper, the main characteristics and innovations of P.I.G.R.O. are presented.

This article presents the kinematic analysis of the tine motion of a rotary harrow. In particular, it analyses the trajectories that the tines describe when they are pulled by the motion of the tractor and rotated by the rotors. This analysis, has led to the identification of the parameters that influence the motion of the tines and how these parameters intervene in the secondary tillage. The interaction between the tines and the soil is evaluated considering a plastic soil, i.e. without any cleavage and its propagation. With this hypothesis, the dimensions of the soil clods created by the passage of the tines in the soil have been analysed. The trajectories described by the tines of the machine, and therefore the dimensions of the portions of worked or unworked soil, are influenced by the operating parameters of the soil tillage process, such as the tractor speed and the angular speed of the tines themselves. Furthermore, a contribution is also given by the geometric parameters of the machine, such as the rotor radius and the geometric configuration of the rotary harrow in terms of rotor arrangement. This study is based on the creation of a mathematical model of the trajectories of the tines of a rotary harrow during soil tillage. The model is parametric and makes it possible to simulate and optimise the tillage process. The approach adopted also makes it possible to visualise the trajectories in graphic form for an easy visual interpretation of the results.

In this paper the exoskeleton P.I.G.R.O.(Pneumatic Interactive Gait Rehabilitation Orthosis), developed in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (DIMEAS) Politecnico di Torino with the important co-operation with doctors, is presented.It was preliminary designed for a completely unloaded walking gait cycle in order to treat the first steps of the neurorehabilitation trainings.An initial FEM evaluation of P.I.G.R.O.structure is here presented.It underlines a lot of important aspects and techniques to analyse the structural characteristics of P.I.G.R.O.legs rigid parts using a commercial software but analysing both the actions of the pneumatic actuators and of the patients muscles and/or movements.The results obtained are good and allow to verify the P.I.G.R.O.legs structure and to establish a procedure to study its characteristics also with the presence of the patient.

This paper presents some prototypes of textile pneumatic muscles developed at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (DIMEAS) of the Politecnico di Torino. As an application, they are intended to be included in an active suit' useful for upper limb rehabilitation. They were realized with textile and soft materials in order to guarantee suitable wearability, confort, low weight, small dimensions as required to actuators used in active suits. This paper illustrated the experimental tests carried on these pneumatic muscles prototypes, a theoretical model from literature here applied to these muscles in order to calculate their stiffness, a preliminary active suit prototype for upper limbs rehabilitation purpose. The results obtained, both in terms of contraction and force developed with these prototypes, are highly satisfactory and the preliminary prototype of active suit realized for upper limbs works properly.

This paper presents the structure and the main innovations of P.I.G.R.O. (Pneumatic Interactive Gait Rehabilitation Orthosis). It is an active exoskeleton electro-pneumatically controlled with 6 DoF (Degree of Freedom) in the sagittal plane. Robotic neurorehabilitation trainings are its main field of application. Some preliminary tests are carrying on with brain stroke and ictus patients.

Studies of motor learning and robotic neurorehabilitation often involve walking with the patient suspended by means of a Body Weight Support (BWS) and guided by a robotic orthosis. This paper describes an innovative research carried on to establish the laws of motion of an active exoskeleton, called P.I.G.R.O. (Pneumatic Interactive Gait Rehabilitation Orthosis), designed by the authors and often used in suspended walking treatments as this avoid the iper-activation of the patient's antigravity musculature in the preliminary steps of the rehabilitation treatment. These experimental tests were carried on with ten healthy subjects wearing the robotic orthosis used as a means of acquiring hip-knee and ankle behavior in this special walking condition with the volunteers' joint angles recorded by the potentiometers of the orthosis. So the ESUWS (Experimental Spontaneous Unloaded Walking Set) curves were plotted. The latter were compared with the theoretical curves of the over-ground walking (Physiological Walking Set - PWS) in order to construct proper reference curves of the healthy spontaneous suspended walking (Authors' Unloaded Walking Set - AUWS), also compared with physiological curves in over-ground walking. The results obtained are highly satisfactory and useful for future neuro-rehabilitation training for brain strokes and ictus.

In this paper a prototype of an automatic machine for the herbaceous grafting of tomatoes is presented. The herbaceous grafting is important in order to reduce the use of pesticides. For this reason, its advantages are both on the environment and on the crops quality. This innovative robotic system, electro-pneumatically controlled, was developed by the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (DIMEAS) of the Politecnico di Torino in collaboration with the Department of Agricultural Forest and Food Sciences (DISAFA) of the Università degli Studi di Torino. The aim of this device is to implement a fully automatic machine capable of picking, choosing, cutting and joining the two plants involved in order to obtain the grafted one.

This article shows some innovative artificial and textile pneumatic muscles designed at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (DIMEAS) of the Politecnico di Torino. The study was carried on using a specific test bench suitable to work with these textile pneumatic muscles. Various geometries were tested giving interesting information about their behavior analyzed with different materials and constructions. These prototypes are useful to be integrated into active clothing for robotic rehabilitation of upper limbs.

In questo articolo vengono presentati alcuni prototipi di dispositivi medicali a controllo elettro-pneumatico o anche completamente pneumatico realizzati presso il DIMEAS (Dip. di Ingegneria Meccanica e Aerospaziale) del Politecnico di Torino. I vari prototipi qui presentati costituiscono un importante esempio di applicazione innovativa dell'aria compressa nel settore medicale

Population aging is a growing phenomenon and causes a large increase in diseases derived from injury or degeneration of the central nervous system. In particular, the stroke is a leading cause of disability in the population over sixty years. Even car accidents are increasing significantly and this greatly affects the youth population. In particular, the traumatic brain injury is the leading cause of disability in people under forty years. For this reasons rehabilitation therapies, that require physiotherapy and care in specialized centres, are always more necessary. Therefore, in recent years, health care spending for these diseases has increased and is still expected a strong growth in the coming years.