research experience 2

My ambition never ended. In Summer 2020, with the belief that learning more about technology in the circuit industry, I started another research project with Prof. Tse Nga Ng. The purpose of this project is to improve an electronic elbow, which is composed of a linear actuator and flex sensor. The flex sensor is a resistive sensor that can pass the data of bending degrees to a microcontroller. Then, the microcontroller will deliver position values to the linear actuator to move. The elbow was designed to help a 5-year-old patient suffering from Poliomyelitis to fully utilize his arms. When I took over this project, the electronic elbow had tons of problems: missing codes, broken microcontroller, and weak power supply. Thus, I had to improve it step by step. First of all, I checked websites and readings about how flex sensor and linear actuator work, and then, I tested the bending degree ranges of the flex sensor and set proper initial position values for linear actuator. For the following 2 months, I rearranged the wiring connections for the electronic elbow, substituted the old microcontroller with a Arduino Mega 2560 board, and wrote new codes in Arduino. Finally, at the end of summer, I updated this electronic elbow, and it can move freely. Although I didn’t have the chance to see them testing my design on the real patient, the success of this research project offered me endless joy of achieving a goal and helping people in need.