ERI: Human-Inspired Robotic Assistance to Prevent Slip-Induced Falls

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This Engineering Research Initiation (ERI) project will contribute new knowledge in the field of prevention of human falls, which is a significant global health problem, and serve the national interest by promoting the progress of science and advancing national health and welfare. The project will transform existing slip and fall prevention approaches as it deviates from existing passive approaches, which include monitoring the environmental factors and training human neuromuscular slip response. This award supports fundamental research to provide needed knowledge for development of active fall prevention methodologies. Specifically, this research will demonstrate that slip-induced falls can be prevented by using a wearable device that provides external mechanical assistance to assist subjects during balance recovery and lead to new resulting balance recovery strategies of subjects that would not be possible without the device. Development of active fall prevention strategies can shift the paradigm of fall prevention approaches that can result in a significant reduction of falls and fall related injuries. The results of this research have the potential to impact the healthcare sector by improving the quality of life of the fall-prone population and reduce the associated economic and societal costs due to falls.This project focuses on the fundamental study of locomotor stability strategies during gait perturbations and human co-adaptation to the external assistance from robotic devices to prevent falls. Deviating from passive slip-and-fall prevention approaches and existing empirically derived controllers, this research will enable development of a complete control framework for active slip prevention using hip and knee exoskeleton. The main objectives of this project are: (1) to establish a fundamental understanding of the active fall prevention strategies through human-exoskeleton cooperation during gait perturbations, and (2) to create a novel bidirectional control framework enabling symbiosis and transfer learning between human and device leading to emergent behavior during slip recoveries. The control framework will integrate theoretical bipedal stability and human-inspired intersegmental coordination with the human motor control and neuromuscular responses. This project will advance our fundamental understanding on preventing slip-induced falls and establish tools to design controllers for safe and efficient assistive fall preventive strategies. This research can impact cooperative, bidirectional controller designs of other assistive device, exoskeletons, prosthesis, and robotic bipedal walkers in robotics and rehabilitation engineering.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.