Abstract
In order to be useful in daily life, lower limb exoskeletons have to be able to provide support not only for nominal situations, such as level ground walking, but also for the recovery from extreme situations. In this paper, we investigate which torques a lower leg exoskeleton would have to produce in order to allow a person to recover from large perturbations or pushes that may occur while walking. We propose a model-based optimization approach that takes into account dynamic models of the human and the exoskeleton as well as experimental data of humans being pushed. Using optimal control and a least squares objective function we compute the joint torques that exoskeletons of different masses and mass distributions would have to produce in order to make the person follow the recorded recovery trajectories of healthy subjects and which loads would occur in the structure. The results of these computations can serve as guidelines for the design of future lower limb exoskeletons.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
H.K. Kwa, J. Noorden, M. Missel, T. Craig, J. Pratt, P. Neuhaus, Development of the IHMC mobility assist exoskeleton, in IEEE/RAS ICRA (2009)
A. Wall, J. Borg, S. Palmcrantz, Clinical application of the hybrid assistive (HAL) for gait traininga systematic review. Front. Syst. Neurosci. 9, 48 (2015). PMC. Web. 14 Mar 2016
S.A. Kolakowsky-Hayner, J. Crew, S. Moran, A. Shah, Safety and feasibility of using the Ekso bionic exoskeleton to aid ambulation after spinal cord injury. J. Spine S4, 003 (2013)
K.H. Koch, K. Mombaur, ExoOpt a framework for patient cetered design optimization of lower limb exoskelerons, in IEEE ICORR (2015)
M. Schemschat, D. Clever, M.L. Felis, E. Chiovetto, M. Giese, K. Mombaur, Joint torque analysis of push recovery motions during human walking, in IEEE BioRob, Singapore (2016)
M. Schemschat, D. Clever, M.L. Felis, K. Mombaur, Optimal push recovery for periodic walking motions. IFAC PSYCO, Eindhoven (2016)
K.H. Koch, Using model-based optimal control for conceptional motion generation for the humannoid robot HRP-2 14 and design investigations for exo-skeleton, Ph.D. thesis, Heidelberg University (2015)
K. Mombaur, Optimal control for applications in medical and rehabilitation technology—challenges and solutions, in Advances in Mathematical Modeling (Springer, 2016)
The Koroibot project. www.koroibot.eu
KoroiBot Motion Capture Database (2014–2016). https://koroibot-motion-database.humanoids.kit.edu/
C. Mandery, O. Terlemez, M. Do, N. Vahrenkamp, T. Asfour, The KIT whole-body human motion database, in IEEE ICAR 2015 (2015), pp. 329–336
Acknowledgments
This work is partly funded by the HGS MathComp of Heidelberg University. Furthermore, the research leading to these results has received funding from the EU FP7 program under grant agreement n\(^\circ \) 611909 (KoroiBot) and the H2020 project SPEXOR n\(^\circ \) 687662.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Schemschat, R.M., Clever, D., Millard, M., Mombaur, K. (2017). Model-Based Optimization for the Design of Exoskeletons that Help Humans to Sustain Large Pushes While Walking. In: Ibáñez, J., González-Vargas, J., AzorÃn, J., Akay, M., Pons, J. (eds) Converging Clinical and Engineering Research on Neurorehabilitation II. Biosystems & Biorobotics, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46669-9_134
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46669-9_134
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-46668-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-46669-9
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)