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This paper introduces a method of posture control for jumping robot on the frontal plane. Human beings can perform the dynamic motion (e.g. running, jumping) by taking an advantage of muscle elasticity. Biped robots with this feature, therefore, have been studied, recently. Especially among them, many robots implemented pneumatic artificial muscles to adopt this feature. These robots have achieved...
Rehabilitation is a process (treatment) aimed at enabling recovery from injuries. Consequently, the patients rebuild their independence and return back to their normal life. For this reason, various systems have been developed such as Rehabilitation Gaming System (RGS), Computer Assisted Rehabilitation Environment (CAREN), etc. Most of these systems use the Virtual Reality (VR) which has a positive...
The elderly sometimes fall owing to tripping caused by decreased dorsal flexion during the swing phase. A wearable assist device that was able to increase dorsal flexion to reduce the risk of tripping was proposed in this study. This device assists in dorsal flexion during the swing phase by transferring the tension force from the upper body to the foot by connecting them using strings. To improve...
Three-dimensional stretching is needed to treat equinovarus, which deforms the patient's foot to plantarflexion, adduction, and inversion postures. We have prototyped a three-dimensional stretching machine that the patient can use for the treatment of equinovarus by him- or herself. By adopting a cable-driven mechanism with two independently controllable pneumatic actuators, the stretching machine...
Equinovarus is a foot deformity characterized by the patient's foot being at rest in an abnormally supinated state. In a clinical setting, physical therapists manually stretch the foot to a pronated state to allow the patient to retain some degree of mobility. Currently, no automated ankle stretching machine is commercially available. To tackle this issue, we have developed an automated stretching...
Lower back pain is a major health concern worldwide. One cause of lower back pain is the burden on the lumbar region caused by the handling of heavy objects. To reduce this burden, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan has recommended “squat lifting.” However, this technique, which supports a large force on lower limbs, is not very popular. Therefore, we aimed to develop a power assist...
Gait is one of biometrie information and defined as pattern movement of lower limb. Clinical gait analysis is important for treatment, diagnosis, and reference for therapy. This paper presents kinematics, kinetics analysis, and kinesiological of muscle signal using complex data acquisitions from normal subject. Gait data were taken using 4 instruments, Optotrak certus 3020, Vernier Force Plate, 8...
This work presents a wearable device and the algorithms for quantitative modelling of joint spasticity and its application in a pilot group of subjects with different levels of spinal cord injury. The device comprises light-weight instrumented handles to measure the interaction force between the subject and the physical therapist performing the tests, EMG sensors and inertial measurement units to...
Some unilateral lower-limb amputees load the intact limb more than the prosthetic limb. This can cause chronic pains, fatigue, lumbago, and joint diseases, including knee osteoarthritis. To avoid and counteract these symptoms it is necessary to improve their asymmetric gait. Increasing the function of the hip abductor muscle is important to maintaining symmetrical weight distribution. Therefore, the...
Lower back pain is a major health concern worldwide. One cause of lower back pain is the burden on the lumbar region caused by the handling of heavy objects. To reduce this burden, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan has recommended “squat lifting.” However, this technique, which supports a large force on lower limbs, is not very popular. Therefore, we aimed to develop a power assist...
Lower Limb Exoskeleton robot that can facilitate stair walking is a big challenge, most systems could only provide level ground walking. In this study, a lightweight (0.5kg at ankle, 0.5kg at waist for control box) and autonomous exoskeleton Ankle Robot was proposed to provide power assistance for gait training of chronic stroke patients and it can facilitate three walking conditions in real-time:...
A novel control method for the walking assistance device using predefined walking trajectory used to walk for the elderly or the patients with weak leg muscle on stairs from plain more safely and naturally is proposed in this paper. Two control method, torque control and impedance control, used per their usage purpose are introduced, and the later one is focused in this paper. To make sure the use...
The human ankle joint plays a crucial role during walking. At the push-off phase the ankle plantarflexors generate the highest torque among the lower limb joints during this activity. The potential of the ankle plantarflexors is affected by numerous pathologies and injuries, which cause a decrease in the ability of the subject to achieve a natural gait pattern. Active orthoses have shown to have potential...
A hybrid neuroprosthesis is a device that uses a combination of electric motors and functional electrical stimulation (FES) to provide gait assistance. Its closed-loop control performance can be potentially affected by the presence of electromechanical delay (EMD) during FES. In this paper, a tracking control scheme for a hybrid walking neuroprosthesis that combines electric motor actuation at the...
The addition of sensory feedback is expected to greatly enhance the performance of motor neuroprostheses. In the case of stroke or spinal cord injured patients, sensory information can be obtained from electroneurographic (ENG) signals recorded from intact nerves in the non-functioning limb. Here, we aimed to identify sensory information recorded from mixed nerves using a multi-channel cuff electrode...
Motor control strategies can be described by muscle synergies, a model of functional muscle recruitment to perform a movement. However, stability of muscle synergies during locomotion has not yet been investigated. The objective of this work was the evaluation of the stability of muscle synergies while walking at normal (NS) and fast (FS) speed. Each walking condition was tested during a prolonged...
This paper is proposed to design a lower limb exoskeleton system for the people who can still generate electromyogram signal. While ascending and descending, the motion can be divided into stance phase and swing phase. According to foot pressure and electromyogram of rectus femoris and tibialis anterior, we establish an algorithm to estimate motion intention while ascending and descending. The exoskeleton...
We propose a simulation framework for gait assistance with ankle pathologies. We first construct the neu-romuscular walking model, then design the parameters for assistance torques for stance and swing legs. The parameter values are determined by performing dynamic optimizations which takes into account the human-exoskeleton interactive dynamics. The simulated energy expenditure and kinematic data...
Cuff electrode recording has been proposed as a solution to obtain robust feedback signals for closed-loop controlled functional neuromuscular stimulation (FNS) systems. However, single-channel cuff electrode recording requires several electrodes to obtain the feedback signal related to each muscle. In this study, we propose an ankle-angle estimation method in which recording is conducted from the...
According to the World Health Organization it was seen that 10–15% people suffers from one or the other kind of disability. Disability is affecting millions of families worldwide. It may be categorized into various forms such as disability related to speech, vision, hearing, locomotor. It has been found by the researchers that mainly females have higher rate of disability as compared to males, as...
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