NRI: A Compliant Lower-Body Exoskeleton to Enable Balanced Walking for Patients with Spinal Cord Injuries

Virginia Polytechnic Institute And State University, Blacksburg VA

Investigators

Abstract

Spinal cord injuries can lead to complete leg paralysis, drastically limiting mobility and reducing quality of life. Significant progress has been made towards wearable exoskeletons that provide some ability to walk, but these require the use of crutches, which create unnatural loads on the wearer, as well as restricting use of the hands and arms. The objective of this research is to develop a lower body exoskeleton able to balance and walk without the use of crutches, thus allowing the wearers to interact with their environment and maintain proper posture. The resulting platform will improve the overall quality of life for those with spinal cord injury by granting them a level of mobility that is currently unachievable. This work will apply methods advanced in the field of humanoid robots to the design of exoskeletons for functionally impaired persons. Specifically, the project will apply a method called whole-body control, which finds motions that resolve multiple motion objectives at once, to a lower body exoskeleton with 12 degrees of freedom, providing a range of movement similar to natural human locomotion, with the exception of ankle yaw. High fidelity torque control will be achieved using series elastic actuators to enable compliant locomotion of the wearer.