Effects of a neuromuscular controller on a powered ankle exoskeleton during human walking
File(s)BIRO16_0292_FI.pdf (1.73 MB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Type
Conference Paper
Abstract
Wearable devices to assist abnormal gaits require controllers that interact with the user in an intuitive and unobtrusive manner. To design such a controller, we investigated a bio-inspired walking controller for orthoses and prostheses. We present (i) a Simulink neuromuscular control library derived from a computational model of reflexive neuromuscular control of human gait with a central pattern generator (CPG) extension, (ii) an ankle reflex controller for the Achilles exoskeleton derived from the library, and (iii) the mechanics and energetics of healthy subjects walking with an actuated ankle orthosis using the proposed controller. As this controller was designed to mimic human reflex patterns during locomotion, we hypothesize that walking with this controller would lead to lower energetic costs, compared to walking with the added mass of the device only, and allow for walking at different speeds without explicit control. Preliminary results suggest that the neuromuscular controller does not disturb walking dynamics in both slow and normal walking cases and can also reduce the net metabolic cost compared to transparent mode of the device. Reductions in tibialis anterior and soleus activity were observed, suggesting the controller could be suitable, in future work, for augmenting or replacing normal walking functions. We also investigated the impedance patterns generated by the neuromuscular controller. The validity of the equivalent variable impedance controller, particularly in stance phase, can facilitate serving subject-specific features by linking impedance measurement and neuromuscular controller.
Date Issued
2016-07-28
Date Acceptance
2016-06-26
Citation
2016 6TH IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BIOMEDICAL ROBOTICS AND BIOMECHATRONICS (BIOROB), 2016, pp.617-622
ISSN
2155-1782
Publisher
IEEE
Start Page
617
End Page
622
Journal / Book Title
2016 6TH IEEE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BIOMEDICAL ROBOTICS AND BIOMECHATRONICS (BIOROB)
Copyright Statement
© 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000392266900105&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Source
Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob), 2016 6th IEEE International Conference on
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Engineering, Biomedical
Robotics
Engineering
Publication Status
Published
Start Date
2016-06-26
Finish Date
2016-06-29
Coverage Spatial
Singapore