Identification of Gait Phases with Neural Networks for Smooth Transparent Control of a Lower Limb Exoskeleton

Vittorio Lippi, Cristian Camardella, Alessandro Filippeschi, Francesco Porcini
2021 Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Informatics in Control, Automation and Robotics   unpublished
Lower limbs exoskeletons provide assistance during standing, squatting, and walking. Gait dynamics, in particular, implies a change in the configuration of the device in terms of contact points, actuation, and system dynamics in general. In order to provide a comfortable experience and maximize the performance, the exoskeleton should be controlled transparently and smoothly, which means, respectively, minimizing the interaction forces with the user and jerky behavior due to transitions between
more » ... ifferent configurations. A previous study showed that a smooth control of the exoskeleton can be achieved using a gait phase segmentation based on joint kinematics. Such a segmentation system can be implemented as linear regression and should be personalized for the user after a calibration procedure. In this work, a nonlinear segmentation function based on neural networks is implemented and compared with linear regression. An on-line implementation is then proposed and tested with a subject.
doi:10.5220/0010554400002994 fatcat:af2wpsez5jcuplgxr2y3pvdki4