PFI:BIC - ASPIRE: hierArchical control of a Smart ankle-foot Prosthesis that supports Increased mobility for REal-life activities

运动是人类最重要的功能之一，为生存、进步和互动服务。有200万美国人接受截肢，其中大部分是下肢截肢。尽管目前的电动假体可以适应行走，在某些情况下还可以跑步，但在各种非刚性或动态地形上行走等基本功能尚未满足。该项目的目标是开发和测试一种智能动力脚踝假体，以支持现实生活活动中更大的移动性。该智能服务系统将能够识别并适应动态的步行环境。基于车载感应和截肢者剩余肌肉的激活，它将调整其特征，以允许在不同环境(如混凝土、沥青、草、砾石、松散的沙子)中行走，为截肢者提供健壮的行走和平衡。从这个项目中获得的科学和技术理解的好处可以扩展到假肢之外，还可以扩展到在援助和康复情况下与人类互动的机器。该合作伙伴关系的多学科专业知识包括工程设计、控制和人因工程，为参与培训的学生提供了一个独特的环境，并在下一代研究人员中培养了一种创新文化。最先进的假肢为行走在固定的地形上提供了合理的解决方案；然而，研究表明，在可变和动态的地形上行走可能会占到现实生活功能的非常重要的一部分。在人类行走中看到的智能水平的适应能力对于推动目前最先进的腿部假肢装置是必要的。这项合作提案旨在研究人类行走中固有的适应智能的分层过程，并利用这一知识开发一种变革性的最先进的脚踝假体。通过对受累小腿肌肉肌电信号的分析，分析踝关节动力学在不同顺应性表面上的预期和反应机制，以期加深对踝关节动力学控制的科学认识。此外，通过将这些原则纳入智能踝足假体的分级控制器的设计中，该计划将增强对先进动力踝足假体的技术理解，使其能够适应目前最先进的假体无法适应的环境。

Locomotion is one of the most important human functions, serving survival, progress, and interaction. There are 2 million Americans living with an amputation and the majority of those amputations are of the lower limbs. Although current powered prostheses can accommodate walking, and in some cases running, basic functions like walking on various non-rigid or dynamic terrains are requirements that have yet to be met. The goal of this project is to develop and test a smart powered ankle-foot prosthesis that supports increased mobility for real-life activities. This smart service system will be able to identify and adapt to dynamic walking environment. Based on on-board sensing and the activations of the amputee's residual muscles, it will adapt its characteristics to allow for walking among different environments (e.g. concrete, asphalt, grass, gravel, loose sand) providing robust walking and balance to the amputee. The benefits of the acquired scientific and technological understanding from this project can extend beyond prostheses, to machines that interact with humans in cases of assistance and rehabilitation. The partnership's multidisciplinary expertise including engineering design, controls and human factors engineering, provides a unique environment for training of the students involved, and fosters an innovation culture in the next generation of researchers. State-of-the-art lower limb prostheses provide reasonable solutions for walking over constant terrain; however, studies show that walking on variable and dynamic terrain may account for a very significant part of real-life functions. The ability to adapt performance at a level of intelligence seen in human walking is necessary to advance the current state-of-the art of lower limb prosthetic devices. This collaborative proposal aims to study the hierarchical processes contributing to the adaptive intelligence inherent in human walking, and to use that knowledge to develop a transformative state-of-the-art ankle-foot prosthesis. By analyzing the anticipatory and reactive mechanisms of the ankle dynamics when stepping on surfaces of different compliance, via the electromyographic signals of the involved lower limb muscles, this research is expected to enhance the scientific understanding of the control of ankle dynamics. Moreover, by incorporating these principles into the design of a hierarchical controller for a smart ankle-foot prosthesis, this program will enhance the technological understanding of advanced powered ankle-foot prosthesis that enables adaptation to the environment, currently not possible by the state-of-the-art prostheses.