Adaptive Oscillator-Based Assistive Torque Control for Gait Asymmetry Correction With a nSEA-Driven Hip Exoskeleton
Gait asymmetry is an important clinical characteristic of the hemiplegic gait most stroke survivors suffered, leading to restricted functional mobility and long-term negative impact on their quality of life. In recent years, robot assistance has been proven able to improve stroke patients’...
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IEEE
2022-01-01
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Series: | IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering |
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Online Access: | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9916305/ |
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author | Yuepeng Qian Haoyong Yu Chenglong Fu |
author_facet | Yuepeng Qian Haoyong Yu Chenglong Fu |
author_sort | Yuepeng Qian |
collection | DOAJ |
description | Gait asymmetry is an important clinical characteristic of the hemiplegic gait most stroke survivors suffered, leading to restricted functional mobility and long-term negative impact on their quality of life. In recent years, robot assistance has been proven able to improve stroke patients’ functional walking, but few studies have been conducted to specifically correct gait asymmetry of stroke patients during the whole gait cycle. In this work, an adaptive oscillator-based assistive torque control was developed and implemented on a unilateral hip exoskeleton driven by a novel nonlinear series elastic actuator (nSEA), aiming at correcting gait asymmetry at hip joints during the whole gait cycle. The adaptive oscillator-based gait asymmetry detection method extracted continuous gait phase and gait asymmetry seamlessly, and then the proposed assistive control attempted to correct gait asymmetry by delivering precise assistive torques synchronized with the continuous gait phase of the patients’ gait. An initial experimental study was conducted to evaluate the proposed assistive control on seven healthy subjects with artificial impairment. The participants walked on a treadmill with assistance from the hip exoskeleton, while artificial impairment was added to mimic the hemiplegic gait with both spacial and temporal asymmetry (such as reduced hip flexion in the impaired side and reduced hip extension in the healthy side). Experimental results suggested the effectiveness of the proposed assistive control in restoring gait symmetry to levels comparable to a normal gait of the participants (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$p < 0.05$ </tex-math></inline-formula>). |
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institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
issn | 1558-0210 |
language | English |
last_indexed | 2024-03-13T05:47:18Z |
publishDate | 2022-01-01 |
publisher | IEEE |
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series | IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering |
spelling | doaj.art-de033b07e129422b85fccbf6fb785e942023-06-13T20:08:58ZengIEEEIEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering1558-02102022-01-01302906291510.1109/TNSRE.2022.32138109916305Adaptive Oscillator-Based Assistive Torque Control for Gait Asymmetry Correction With a nSEA-Driven Hip ExoskeletonYuepeng Qian0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5298-1849Haoyong Yu1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9876-4863Chenglong Fu2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8955-5429Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Queenstown, SingaporeDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Queenstown, SingaporeGuangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Human-Augmentation and Rehabilitation Robotics in Universities, Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Biomimetic Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, ChinaGait asymmetry is an important clinical characteristic of the hemiplegic gait most stroke survivors suffered, leading to restricted functional mobility and long-term negative impact on their quality of life. In recent years, robot assistance has been proven able to improve stroke patients’ functional walking, but few studies have been conducted to specifically correct gait asymmetry of stroke patients during the whole gait cycle. In this work, an adaptive oscillator-based assistive torque control was developed and implemented on a unilateral hip exoskeleton driven by a novel nonlinear series elastic actuator (nSEA), aiming at correcting gait asymmetry at hip joints during the whole gait cycle. The adaptive oscillator-based gait asymmetry detection method extracted continuous gait phase and gait asymmetry seamlessly, and then the proposed assistive control attempted to correct gait asymmetry by delivering precise assistive torques synchronized with the continuous gait phase of the patients’ gait. An initial experimental study was conducted to evaluate the proposed assistive control on seven healthy subjects with artificial impairment. The participants walked on a treadmill with assistance from the hip exoskeleton, while artificial impairment was added to mimic the hemiplegic gait with both spacial and temporal asymmetry (such as reduced hip flexion in the impaired side and reduced hip extension in the healthy side). Experimental results suggested the effectiveness of the proposed assistive control in restoring gait symmetry to levels comparable to a normal gait of the participants (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$p < 0.05$ </tex-math></inline-formula>).https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9916305/Rehabilitation roboticsgait asymmetryhip exoskeletonseries elastic actuator (SEA) |
spellingShingle | Yuepeng Qian Haoyong Yu Chenglong Fu Adaptive Oscillator-Based Assistive Torque Control for Gait Asymmetry Correction With a nSEA-Driven Hip Exoskeleton IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering Rehabilitation robotics gait asymmetry hip exoskeleton series elastic actuator (SEA) |
title | Adaptive Oscillator-Based Assistive Torque Control for Gait Asymmetry Correction With a nSEA-Driven Hip Exoskeleton |
title_full | Adaptive Oscillator-Based Assistive Torque Control for Gait Asymmetry Correction With a nSEA-Driven Hip Exoskeleton |
title_fullStr | Adaptive Oscillator-Based Assistive Torque Control for Gait Asymmetry Correction With a nSEA-Driven Hip Exoskeleton |
title_full_unstemmed | Adaptive Oscillator-Based Assistive Torque Control for Gait Asymmetry Correction With a nSEA-Driven Hip Exoskeleton |
title_short | Adaptive Oscillator-Based Assistive Torque Control for Gait Asymmetry Correction With a nSEA-Driven Hip Exoskeleton |
title_sort | adaptive oscillator based assistive torque control for gait asymmetry correction with a nsea driven hip exoskeleton |
topic | Rehabilitation robotics gait asymmetry hip exoskeleton series elastic actuator (SEA) |
url | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9916305/ |
work_keys_str_mv | AT yuepengqian adaptiveoscillatorbasedassistivetorquecontrolforgaitasymmetrycorrectionwithanseadrivenhipexoskeleton AT haoyongyu adaptiveoscillatorbasedassistivetorquecontrolforgaitasymmetrycorrectionwithanseadrivenhipexoskeleton AT chenglongfu adaptiveoscillatorbasedassistivetorquecontrolforgaitasymmetrycorrectionwithanseadrivenhipexoskeleton |