Muscle activation patterns during plantarflexion-assisted walking

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As technology advances and world population ages, lower‐limb exoskeletons are expected to become more widespread. However, there are still substantial barriers in reducing the metabolic cost required for walking using these exoskeletons. Because walking is largely an unconscious and automated activity, users of exoskeletons often do not reduce their muscular activity to benefit from the assistive force provided and adjust their gait in ways that are counterproductive. This research aims to improve our understanding of these barriers to reduce the metabolic costs of walking through controlled experiments with healthy human subjects. It is important to understand the adaptations to these external forces to design exoskeletons that can effectively complement and cooperate with its user human user.In the first and second year, a custom ankle exoskeleton testbed that can provide precise plantarflexion assistance in order to perform the experiments stated above was developed. The ankle exoskeleton testbed needs to have the function to control the torque exerted based on the angle of the ankle as well as other inputs. By synchronising the actuators with a motion capture system and sensors in the exoskeleton, the developed exoskeleton is able to provide precisely timed assistance to the participants depending on their gait phase. Additionally, a review on human adaptations to external assistive forces in exoskeletons was conducted.