Observing human gait and detecting falls: A model-based approach based on wearable sensors

Falling remains a large source of (traumatic) injuries and healthcare costs. Over the past years, different actuators have been developed in the field of wearable robotics to help prevent injuries from falling. To increase the wearability of these systems, the weight of power storage can be decreased with intermittent instead of continuous...

Design validation of the MATE tendon-based passive device for post-stroke rehabilitation

Rehabilitation robots have been shown to be effective in post-stroke gait rehabilitation. However, these devices are usually expensive and suffer from high inertia which decreases transparency. The Minimally Actuated Tendon-based exercise Environment (MATE) is a tendon-based rehabilitation device, designed to be cost-effective and minimize...

A MATE for post-stroke gait rehabilitation; design optimization of a minimally actuated tendon-based gait rehabilitation device

Robots can be powerful tools in post-stroke gait rehabilitation. However, state-of-the-art robots are often expensive machines containing rigid links with high inertia. Their expensiveness could limit their availability, and their high inertia reduces transparency, which could hinder rehabilitation progress. These factors raise the need for a...

Sample Entropy as a tool for quantifying human gait complexity: the effect of age and walking velocity

Purpose – The entropy algorithm is a recently developed statistic for quantifying the complexity of time series data. To date, research of biomechanics and motor control discussed whether entropy algorithms could be used as a convenient tool to identify healthy gait function, to evaluate outcomes of physical therapies and to monitor the...

Simulation of equinus gait and effects of ankle stiffness compensation with a neuromusculoskeletal model

Introduction: Pes equinus with increased ankle joint stiffness is a common impairment in stroke and Cerebral Palsy (CP) patients with structural and/or neural deficits of the ankle muscles. Equinus gait is characterized by toe-strike, abnormal ankle plantarflexion and decreased ankle range of motion (ROM). A new ankle-foot orthosis (AFO) with...

The relation between medio-lateral trunk movements and ankle power and work during the push off phase of gait

Joint kinetics measured during level walking demonstrates that the main source of energy occurs around the ankle joint, i.e. a large power burst during push off. This power burst can be divided into two mechanisms; pre-emptive push off and a push off to accelerate the leg into swing. This division is marked by the contralateral initial contact,...

Exploring the potential of using the foot sole pressure pattern to control step length in exoskeleton gait

Semi-autonomous robotic exoskeletons enable paraplegics to walk again. The exoskeleton envelops the paraplegic’s waist, legs and feet. When the user gives the command to start walking, the exoskeleton’s robotic legs start a cyclic walking motion. The user, aided by crutches, follows this fixed cyclic motion, shifting their weight to the stance...

Adaptive Gait Switching Control Structure using Max Plus in Legged Locomotion

The ZeBRo (Dutch abbreviation: Zesbenige Robot, six-legged robot), is a walking robot designed by the TU Delft, with its foundations on the RHex. The current version of the ZeBRo project, the DeciZebro, is made for the research to swarming in robotics, and is about the size of an A4-paper. <br/>To counter these shortcomings of CPG (a method to...

Energy-Optimized Toed Walking on Flexible Soles for Humanoids

In this research the role of thick flexible soles in energy-efficient humanoid walking is analyzed. It is<br/>hypothesized that, the addition of underactuated degrees of freedom under the foot gives the robot<br/>the potential to execute a pseudo-passive walking motion 1, which yields a decrease in ankle torque<br/>and energy expenditure....

Evaluation of Musculoskeletal Model Personalization for Gait Analysis of Children with Cerebral Palsy

Musculoskeletal modeling and simulation has become a prominent tool in clinical gait analysis with the ability to provide insight into the underlying mechanisms of human movement. However, generic cadaver-based models have been shown to poorly reflect live subjects, especially those with pathologies such as cerebral palsy (CP). The main purpose...

Development of the Balance module to support stroke patients during treadmill-based gait rehabilitation training

After a stroke, patients often need gait rehabilitation training to regain a safe walking pattern to participate in daily activities again. Good gait rehabilitation training comprises high intensity, which can be achieved using support systems, such as treadmills. Research pointed out that there are insufficient support systems for patients with...

Gait Chaotification

In multi-legged robots, such as the Zebro robot from TU Delft Robotics Institute, locomotion can be addressed as a Max-Plus Linear (MPL) system. In such MPL systems the gait is generated and controlled by abstracting the continuous motion of the legs to the occurrences of discrete touch-down and lift-off events, which are subsequently described...

Rehabilitate yourself! Designing a new way of rehabilitation intertwined in daily life.

The most common cause leading to the total hip arthroplasty is the joint disorder osteoarthritis. Due to osteoarthritis pain will increase over time, to the point the disease will influence the quality of the daily life of people. A total hip arthroplasty (THA) will be the solution to relieve the patient of the damaged hip. Among 33.497 patients...

Dynamic in situ calibration of an instrumented treadmill for systems identification and parameter estimation

Existing re-calibration methods for instrumented treadmills have mainly been performed when the instrumented treadmill has been in static operation i.e. the belts are not running. The effect re-calibrating during experimental operation, i.e. while the belts are running, on the ground reaction force (GRF) and the center of pressure (CoP) accuracy...