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A biarticular passive exosuit to support balance control can reduce metabolic cost of walking

Barazesh, Hamid ; Ahmad Sharbafi, Maziar (2024)
A biarticular passive exosuit to support balance control can reduce metabolic cost of walking.
In: Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, 2020, 15 (3)
doi: 10.26083/tuprints-00020379
Article, Secondary publication, Publisher's Version

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Item Type: Article
Type of entry: Secondary publication
Title: A biarticular passive exosuit to support balance control can reduce metabolic cost of walking
Language: English
Date: 19 March 2024
Place of Publication: Darmstadt
Year of primary publication: 2020
Place of primary publication: Bristol
Publisher: IOP Publishing
Journal or Publication Title: Bioinspiration & Biomimetics
Volume of the journal: 15
Issue Number: 3
Collation: 17 Seiten
DOI: 10.26083/tuprints-00020379
Corresponding Links:
Origin: Secondary publication DeepGreen
Abstract:

Nowadays, the focus on the development of assistive devices just for people with mobility disorders has shifted towards enhancing physical abilities of able-bodied humans. As a result, the interest in the design of cheap and soft wearable exoskeletons (called exosuits) is distinctly growing. In this paper, a passive lower limb exosuit with two biarticular variable stiffness elements is introduced. These elements are in parallel to the hamstring muscles of the leg and controlled based on a new version of the FMCH (force modulated compliant hip) control framework in which the force feedback is replaced by the length feedback (called LMCH). The main insight to employ leg length feedback is to develop a passive exosuit. Fortunately, similar to FMCH, the LMCH method also predicts human-like balance control behaviours, such as the VPP (virtual pivot point) phenomenon, observed in human walking. Our simulation results, using a neuromuscular model of human walking, demonstrate that this method could reduce the metabolic cost of human walking by 10%. Furthermore, to validate the design and simulation results, a preliminary version of this exosuit comprised of springs with constant stiffness was built. An experiment with eight healthy subjects was performed. We made a comparison between the walking experiments while the exosuit is worn but the springs were slack and those when the appropriate springs were contributing. It shows that passive biarticular elasticity can result in a metabolic reduction of 14.7 ± 4.27%. More importantly, compared to unassisted walking (when exosuit is not worn), such a passive device can reduce walking metabolic cost by 4.68 ± 4.24%.

Uncontrolled Keywords: exosuit, assistive device, bio-inspired robots, biarticular actuation, reflex-based control, walking assistance
Status: Publisher's Version
URN: urn:nbn:de:tuda-tuprints-203794
Classification DDC: 600 Technology, medicine, applied sciences > 610 Medicine and health
600 Technology, medicine, applied sciences > 621.3 Electrical engineering, electronics
Divisions: 03 Department of Human Sciences > Institut für Sportwissenschaft > Sportbiomechanik
Zentrale Einrichtungen > Centre for Cognitive Science (CCS)
Date Deposited: 19 Mar 2024 10:14
Last Modified: 11 Apr 2024 07:46
SWORD Depositor: Deep Green
URI: https://tuprints.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/id/eprint/20379
PPN: 51702666X
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