Communications of the ACM
Engineer Applies Robot Control Theory to Improve Prosthetic Legs
Researchers at the University of Texas as Dallas are using robot control theory to develop powered prosthetics that can help amputees walk.
Credit: UT Dallas News
University of Texas at Dallas (UT Dallas) researchers have applied robot control theory to enable powered prosthetics to dynamically respond to the wearer's environment and help amputees walk.
"We borrowed from robot control theory to create a simple, effective new way to analyze the human gait cycle," says UT Dallas professor Robert Gregg. "Our approach resulted in a method for controlling powered prostheses for amputees to help them move in a more stable, natural way than current prostheses."
The researchers proposed a new way to view and study the process of human walking by measuring a single variable that represents the motion of the body, which was the center of pressure on the foot and moves from heel to toe through the gait cycle. The researchers implemented the algorithms with sensors measuring the center of pressure on a powered prosthesis. Subjects were instructed to walk on the ground and on a treadmill moving at increasing speeds.
"We did not tell the prosthesis that the treadmill speed was increasing," Gregg says. "The prosthesis responded naturally just as the biological leg would do."
The researchers say the next step is to compare the results of experiments with robotic legs using both the time paradigm and the center of pressure paradigm.
From UT Dallas News
View Full Article
Abstracts Copyright © 2014 Information Inc., Bethesda, Maryland, USA
No entries found