Reid, Jason I. (University of California, Berkeley), McKinley, Michael G. (University of California), Tung, Wayne Yi-Wei (University of California, Berkeley), Pillai, Minerva Vasudevan (University of California, Berkeley), Kazerooni, Homayoon (University of California at Berkeley)

A Method of Swing Leg Control for a Minimally Actuated Medical Exoskeleton for Individuals with Paralysis

Scheduled for presentation during the Invited session "Dynamical Modeling and Diagnostics in Biomedical Systems" (MoAT5), Monday, October 21, 2013, 11:55−12:15, Tent B

6th Annual Dynamic Systems and Control Conference, October 21-23, 2020, Stanford University, Munger Center, Palo Alto, CA

This information is tentative and subject to change. Compiled on April 19, 2024

Abstract

This paper discusses the control of a medical exoskeleton swing leg that has a “passive” (unactuated) knee. Previous work in legged locomotion has demonstrated the feasibility of achieving natural, energy efficient walking with minimally actuated robotic systems. This work will present early results for a medical exoskeleton that only has actuation that powers the flexion and extension of the biological hip. In this work, a hybrid model of the state dependent kinematics and dynamics of the swing leg will be developed and parameterized to yield swing hip dynamics as a function of desired knee flexion dynamics. This model is used to design swing hip motions that control the flexion behavior of the passive swing knee in a human-like manner. This concept was tested by a paraplegic user wearing a new minimally actuated exoskeleton. The presented results show that a human-like swing phase can be achieved with an exoskeleton that has fewer actuated degrees of freedom than current medical exoskeletons.