Abstract
In the last two decades, lower-limb exoskeletons have been developed to assist human standing and locomotion. One of the ongoing challenges is still balance support. Here we present a control strategy for an ankle-exoskeleton to assist balance recovery after unexpected disturbances during walking. We evaluated the controller in two healthy participants wearing the ankles of the Symbitron exoskeleton while receiving forward pushes at the pelvis during walking. Providing low and medium assistance resulted in improvement of balance recovery (decreased center of mass movement in the direction of the perturbation) and reduction of muscle activity, respect to trials with no assistance. These effects saturated with high levels of assistance. The results are promising, but the controller should be improved to use human’s real-time response as a feedback to trigger the support.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Wearable Robotics: Challenges and Trends |
Subtitle of host publication | Proceedings of the 5th International Symposium on Wearable Robotics, WeRob2020, and of WearRAcon Europe 2020, October 13–16, 2020 |
Editors | Juan C. Moreno, Jawad Masood, Urs Schneider, Christophe Maufroy, Jose L. Pons |
Publisher | Springer |
Pages | 47-51 |
Number of pages | 5 |
ISBN (Print) | 978-3-030-69547-7 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2022 |
Event | 5th International Symposium on Wearable Robotics, WeRob 2020 - Virtual conference Duration: 13 Oct 2020 → 16 Oct 2020 Conference number: 5 https://www.wearableroboticslab.nl/Events/2020/10/648432/balance-recovery-support-using-wearable-robotic-devices#speakers-talks |
Publication series
Name | Biosystems and Biorobotics |
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Volume | 27 |
ISSN (Print) | 2195-3562 |
ISSN (Electronic) | 2195-3570 |
Conference
Conference | 5th International Symposium on Wearable Robotics, WeRob 2020 |
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Abbreviated title | WeRob 2020 |
Period | 13/10/20 → 16/10/20 |
Internet address |
Keywords
- 2022 OA procedure