Energy efficient lower-limb wearable robotic devices

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Walking, while easily accomplished by a healthy individual, is often a difficult task for the elderly or physically impaired. With our elderly population increasing there is a growing demand for assistive devices to improve their quality of life. The long-term goal is to develop energy efficient wearable lower-limb robotic devices for use in everyday life. My general hypothesis is that the energy consumption of the user and the robotic device will decrease by effectively managing the bilateral mechanical energy exchange between them. Specifically, the robotic device will help the user to reduce the energy consumption by assisting his/her muscles in performing positive or negative work during walking and the robotic device will benefit from harvesting energy that otherwise wasted by the user and consequently achieve reduced energy consumption. The reduced energy consumption could be achieved either by exchanging mechanical energy temporally within one joint between different portions of a gait cycle or by redistributing mechanical energy spatially between multiple joints of the same limb or across limbs. Aim 1 designs a wearable knee robotic device that is capable of assisting knee motion in one portion of a gait cycle and harvesting energy in the other portions of the gait cycle. Aim 2 develops a bi-articular wearable robotic device with a knee joint and a hip joint to allow energy exchange between these two joints. Aim 3 develops real time walking speed and terrain estimation methods for wearable robot intelligent control. The results of the proposed research will provide assistive technologies could directly help physically impaired patients in their rehabilitation and improve mobility, thus leading to improvement in the standard of living and quality of life for Canadians.