Project Duration:
September 2018 – May 2019
Our team VariLeg enhanced has designed and built an exoskeleton for the Cybathlon 2020. Wearing our electrically powered exoskeleton, paraplegics can walk again. In just eight months, 15 students from ETH Zurich and HSR Rapperswil went from conception to a functional product. We worked on the exoskeleton as part of a Focus Project, to which we dedicated the final year of our bachelor’s.
Role
In the first phase of the project, I served as project co-leader and was significantly involved in the formation of our team. In the second phase, I withdrew from that position in favor of being able to fully commit my time to the development of a novel EtherCAT motion controller (code available on GitHub), while also acting as a member of the advisory board which supported our team leader. Throughout the duration of the project, I was a member of the mechatronics and the tools-management teams.
CYBATHLON 2020
The project was continued by the Eastern Switzerland University of Applied Sciences (formerly HSR Rapperswil). They participated in the 2020 competition with our pilots, Rolf Schoch and Thomas Krieg, who placed 6th and 7th in the race, respectively.