Underactuated Potential Energy Shaping with Contact Constraints: Application to a Powered Knee-Ankle Orthosis.

ABSTRACT: Body-weight support (i.e., gravity compensation) is an effective clinical tool for gait rehabilitation after neurological impairment. Body-weight supported training systems have been developed to help patients regain mobility and confidence during walking, but conventional systems constrain the patient's treatment in clinical environments. We propose that this challenge could be addressed by virtually providing patients with bodyweight support through the actuators of a powered orthosis (or exoskeleton) utilizing potential energy shaping control. However, the changing contact conditions and degrees of underactuation encountered during human walking present significant challenges to consistently matching a desired potential energy for the human in closed loop. We therefore derive a generali

SUBMITTER: Lv G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5792089 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature