Cooperative ankle-exoskeleton control can reduce effort to recover balance after unexpected disturbances during walking.

ABSTRACT:

Background

In the last two decades, lower-limb exoskeletons have been developed to assist human standing and locomotion. One of the ongoing challenges is the cooperation between the exoskeleton balance support and the wearer control. Here we present a cooperative ankle-exoskeleton control strategy to assist in balance recovery after unexpected disturbances during walking, which is inspired on human balance responses.

Methods

We evaluated the novel controller in ten able-bodied participants wearing the ankle modules of the Symbitron exoskeleton. During walking, participants received unexpected forward pushes with different timing and magnitude at the pelvis level, while being supported (Exo-Assistance) or not (Exo-NoAssistance) by the robotic assistance provided by the contro

SUBMITTER: Bayon C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8851842 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature