TY - JOUR
T1 - An adaptive foot device for increased gait and postural stability in lower limb orthoses and exoskeletons
AU - Yoon, Jungwon
AU - Kumar, R. Prasanth
AU - Özer, Abdullah
N1 - Funding Information:
__________ Manuscript received May 31, 2010; revised January 19, 2011, accepted January 27, 2011. Recommended by Editorial Board member Shinsuk Park under the direction of Editor Jae-Bok Song. This paper is an extended version of an ICCAS 2009 outstanding paper titled as “Improved Stability in Lower Extremity Exoskeletons using Foot Extensions”. This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology under Grant NRF-2008-331-D00027 and in part by the Priority Research Centers Program through the National Research Foundation under Grant 2009-0094016.
PY - 2011/6
Y1 - 2011/6
N2 - Assistive devices and exoskeletons have critical importance for people with manipulative and locomotive disabilities. One of the major purposes of such devices when used for lower extremities is to help provide the postural or gait stability of the user. However, current lower extremity exoskeletons available lack the sufficient foot support area to guarantee a safe operation for the rehabilitation of patients, and normal posture/gait for users carrying heavy loads on backpack. As a result, these devices may require an intensive control effort to supply the posture or gait stability and can demand additional therapist help during rehabilitation. In this paper, we proposed a novel adaptive foot system to enhance the required stability of lower extremity exoskeletons as an add-on device. The method essentially aims to automatically extend the support area behind the heel during walking. The proposed adaptive foot system can extend passively during stance and retract during the toe rocker phase, which allows increased support areas during stance and prevent collisions to the level ground during swing. It is practical to implement and can be employed without necessitating an actuation power. The proposed wearable system will particularly be valuable in rehabilitation for enhancing the stability where safety of patients is particularly critical. It is also anticipated that the system can be a complementary device for current exoskeletons or humanoid robots to enhance their stability. A detailed description and numerical analysis of the stability in sagittal plane is presented for postural and gait cases in this paper. Experiments have been also conducted to prove the effectiveness of the adaptive wearable device for postural and gait stability.
AB - Assistive devices and exoskeletons have critical importance for people with manipulative and locomotive disabilities. One of the major purposes of such devices when used for lower extremities is to help provide the postural or gait stability of the user. However, current lower extremity exoskeletons available lack the sufficient foot support area to guarantee a safe operation for the rehabilitation of patients, and normal posture/gait for users carrying heavy loads on backpack. As a result, these devices may require an intensive control effort to supply the posture or gait stability and can demand additional therapist help during rehabilitation. In this paper, we proposed a novel adaptive foot system to enhance the required stability of lower extremity exoskeletons as an add-on device. The method essentially aims to automatically extend the support area behind the heel during walking. The proposed adaptive foot system can extend passively during stance and retract during the toe rocker phase, which allows increased support areas during stance and prevent collisions to the level ground during swing. It is practical to implement and can be employed without necessitating an actuation power. The proposed wearable system will particularly be valuable in rehabilitation for enhancing the stability where safety of patients is particularly critical. It is also anticipated that the system can be a complementary device for current exoskeletons or humanoid robots to enhance their stability. A detailed description and numerical analysis of the stability in sagittal plane is presented for postural and gait cases in this paper. Experiments have been also conducted to prove the effectiveness of the adaptive wearable device for postural and gait stability.
KW - Adaptive foot device
KW - Backpack
KW - Lower extremity exoskeleton
KW - Rehabilitation
KW - Stability
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=80052667077&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=80052667077&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s12555-011-0311-3
DO - 10.1007/s12555-011-0311-3
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:80052667077
SN - 1598-6446
VL - 9
SP - 515
EP - 524
JO - International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems
JF - International Journal of Control, Automation and Systems
IS - 3
ER -