使用弹性下肢外骨骼跑步。
Running With an Elastic Lower Limb Exoskeleton.
作者信息
Cherry Michael S, Kota Sridhar, Young Aaron, Ferris Daniel P
机构信息
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
出版信息
J Appl Biomech. 2016 Jun;32(3):269-77. doi: 10.1123/jab.2015-0155. Epub 2015 Dec 22.
Although there have been many lower limb robotic exoskeletons that have been tested for human walking, few devices have been tested for assisting running. It is possible that a pseudo-passive elastic exoskeleton could benefit human running without the addition of electrical motors due to the spring-like behavior of the human leg. We developed an elastic lower limb exoskeleton that added stiffness in parallel with the entire lower limb. Six healthy, young subjects ran on a treadmill at 2.3 m/s with and without the exoskeleton. Although the exoskeleton was designed to provide ~50% of normal leg stiffness during running, it only provided 24% of leg stiffness during testing. The difference in added leg stiffness was primarily due to soft tissue compression and harness compliance decreasing exoskeleton displacement during stance. As a result, the exoskeleton only supported about 7% of the peak vertical ground reaction force. There was a significant increase in metabolic cost when running with the exoskeleton compared with running without the exoskeleton (ANOVA, P < .01). We conclude that 2 major roadblocks to designing successful lower limb robotic exoskeletons for human running are human-machine interface compliance and the extra lower limb inertia from the exoskeleton.
尽管已经有许多下肢机器人外骨骼被用于人类行走测试,但用于辅助跑步测试的设备却很少。由于人类腿部类似弹簧的行为,一种伪被动弹性外骨骼有可能在不添加电动马达的情况下对人类跑步有益。我们开发了一种弹性下肢外骨骼,它在整个下肢平行增加了刚度。六名健康的年轻受试者在跑步机上以2.3米/秒的速度跑步,分别测试了有和没有外骨骼的情况。尽管该外骨骼设计为在跑步时提供约50%的正常腿部刚度,但在测试中它仅提供了24%的腿部刚度。增加的腿部刚度差异主要是由于软组织压缩和束带顺应性降低了站立时外骨骼的位移。结果,该外骨骼仅支撑了约7%的峰值垂直地面反作用力。与不使用外骨骼跑步相比,使用外骨骼跑步时代谢成本显著增加(方差分析,P < 0.01)。我们得出结论,为人类跑步设计成功的下肢机器人外骨骼的两个主要障碍是人机界面顺应性和外骨骼带来的额外下肢惯性。