Gait control of powered exoskeleton with finger-mounted walk controller for paraplegic patient

Abstract

This paper proposes a wearable interface to control a walk for paraplegic patients wearing an underactuated powered exoskeleton on lower limbs. Current powered exoskeletons are helpful for patient's walk. However, there are differences between wearer's intentions and actual leg motions. In order to synchronize them, more leg motions such as leg-swing, stride and foot-height should be controlled by a user. The proposed interface enables the user to convey the user's intention such leg motions. At the first stage, a motion simulator is controlled to verify the effectiveness of our interface. We confirmed the timing of leg-swing is adjusted as the wearer intends through 10-meter walk experiment and the motion simulator finished walking 10-meter within three minutes.