Walking Support System using Mutual Entrainment and its Effectiveness for Gait Stabilization

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Considerable research attention has been devoted to interpersonal synchrony and to locomotor control. However their intersection, the interpersonal synchronization of stepping rhythms, remains relatively unexplored, despite being a common phenomenon that has considerable rehabilitation potential. Therefore, from the perspective of mutual entrainment of gait rhythms, we have constructed an interpersonal synchrony emulation system between a human subject and a virtual biped robot that generates pacing signals using nonlinear oscillators. This system synchronizes the gait cycles of a human and the robot in a cross-feedback manner, by presenting auditory stimuli that indicate the timing of the partner's foot contacting the ground. Here, we evaluated the effectiveness of this system in gait stabilization of Parkison's disease patients, who display disturbances in rhythm formation of gait. The results showed that the gait festination as stride time reduction stabilized and the fluctuation of stride time showed high self-similarity. These results show the effectiveness of mutual entrainment in dynamically stabilizing gait disturbances.