AURORA

THE EXOSKELETON

SPORT-SPECIFIC MEDICAL BRACES

“for the ones who are born to fight”

support for both physical and mental, becomes a second nature in life as we constantly challenge ourselves

It doesn’t matter how You fall. It’s how You stand up!

BRACES

We are researching post-operative orthopaedic exosceletal supports using TAPE technology and 3D printing on human joints and spine, applying personalised design and self-brending to enhance the athletic performance of elite athletes and artists.

Our prototype is currently under construction and is constantly being revised to create the best we can. We have started with the knee, where the motion validation part has just been completed.

Using MRI scans of the human body and CAD, we design the orthotic shell around the soft tissues, using the movement patterns to fit the exoskeleton perfectly.

The project is still under development, but we can’t wait to present the finished product.

by Andrea Csatlos

MOOD BOARD

STORY

I happened to torn my ACL doing gymnastics at the backyard at midnight during the COVID lockdown… Well, that was not my best idea.

I accidentally fractured my spine during an experimental weightlifting training… We need to learn our limits, right?

Throughout the years of my professional sports career as a gymnast, I struggled with injuries, especially in my hyper-flexible joints. After I stopped competing at the age of 18 and turned to other sports, the problems only got worse. So I started studying sports science to understand how our amazing bodies work. As a scientist/engineer, my job is to figure out how to do impossible things and create the conditions to do impossible things.

I realised that I needed to train my muscles for more engagement and develop deep body awareness to achieve better stability and protect my joints and ligaments. So that I can perform more complicated elements.

Recovery is mental, physical and spiritual. To balance it all, I have started to train according to the TANETSKOT method, which is based on the principles of ballet, to train deep muscles and improve precision skills, bringing emotions into smaller monologues and acting with the voice to stimulate the vagus nervous system and create different breathing patterns to maintain cardiovascular function.

I am getting better at this and as a certified personal trainer I have the opportunity to educate people and provide a more holistic view. I believe that prevention is key, but I still love to push my limits. So I also need all the support I can get to strengthen my body. It’s only natural that I hurt myself sometimes, but after every injury I get up a little stronger!

AURORA has started as my Master’s thesis in sport-related biomedical engineering. In sports, performing arts, and even in life, finding and expressing ourselves have a crucial point in how we see the world and how we can find our place in it and reach our peak performance. That was the basic idea of creating AURORA, the exoskeleton.

I constantly scan, explore, and express the medical and psychological needs of the human body and soul; implement this knowledge to work on Project AURORA that helps elite athletes to deal with injuries and embrace them in their future careers; and also avoid reinjuring.

I hope You find this project interesting, take a look at about the work we do below.

Thanks for reading, enjoy!

ANDREA CSATLOS

WORK FLOW

Although the regular orthoses are made by scanning the other shell of the knee, we decided to scan it inside also, to see the bone specificities and soft tissue parameters also.

take an MRI

slice up DICOM

voxel modell

segmented bone structure

make solid model

We used parametric modeling to build a surfacee model to the bones. Steb by step process below.

Using the voxel models and the MRI scans and a bonus surface scan we fit all together and analysed the patient which construction would be the best for them.

solid model vs segmented model

skin shell

verify shape

To give a more detailoed picture we built up a motion skeleton to move the bones and used the biomechanics of the knee to place the hinge and to create the design.

The motion designed brace fits like a gove and moves perfectly with the knee.

build frame

move knee

brace motion

combine tape

with 3D printing

verify motion

After verifying the motion with the first white brace we printed out, the forces and anatomical peculiarities came to focus to calibrate the brace to the user.

measure forces

add soft tissues

calibrate to limit-forces

We work on to combine TAPE and hardshell braces to be reuseable and could fit to the user perfecly both in shapes and limit forces, providing a solid fit to the skin that is not going to relocate by any motion.