ALICE: Conceptual Development of a Lower Limb Exoskeleton Robot Driven by an On-Board Musculoskeletal Simulator.

OBJECTIVE

In this article, we present the conceptual development of a robotics platform, called ALICE (Assistive Lower Limb Controlled Exoskeleton), for kinetic and kinematic gait characterization. The ALICE platform includes a robotics wearable exoskeleton and an on-board muscle driven simulator to estimate the user's kinetic parameters.

BACKGROUND

Even when the kinematics patterns of the human gait are well studied and reported in the literature, there exists a considerable intra-subject variability in the kinetics of the movements. ALICE aims to be an advanced mechanical sensor that allows us to compute real-time information of both kinetic and kinematic data, opening up a new personalized rehabilitation concept.

METHODOLOGY

We developed a full muscle driven simulator in an open source environment and validated it with real gait data obtained from patients diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. After that, we designed, modeled, and controlled a 6 DoF lower limb exoskeleton with inertial measurement units and a position/velocity sensor in each actuator.

SIGNIFICANCE

This novel concept aims to become a tool for improving the diagnosis of pathological gait and to design personalized robotics rehabilitation therapies.

CONCLUSION

ALICE is the first robotics platform automatically adapted to the kinetic and kinematic gait parameters of each patient.