Lower-limb exoskeletons and powered orthoses in gait assistance applications for patients with locomotive disorders possess the potential to significantly affect society in the near future. This paper presents the primary features of a lower-limb exoskeleton under development as an active orthosis to enable paralysed children to walk. Because these patients are unable to move their limbs, the device generates their basic motions in everyday life, e.g. standing up, sitting down and stable ambulation. Novel features of this prototype include synergic biarticular actuation in the ankle, a compliance controller based on the force measured using insoles and the definition of parameterised hip and foot trajectories that facilitate the adaptation of gait characteristics. The improved gait performance that results from the proposed approach was experimentally validated. © 2014 Taylor & Francis and The Robotics Society of Japan.

This work has been partially funded by the Spanish National Plan for Research, Development and Innovation through grant DPI2010-18702 which has funded personnel costs and by AECID through grant PCI-Iberoamerica A1/039883/11 which has funded equipment and consumable costs.

Peer Reviewed