Auditory movement feedforward for a lower-limb exoskeleton device (AIDER) to increase transparency

Abstract

A lower-limb exoskeleton (LLE) is a device intended to assist patients with spinal cord injury (SCI) with standing and walking in daily life. Due to the lack of proprioception in lower limbs, SCI patients wearing an LLE need the gait information feedforward from the human-exoskeleton system for walking safety. It is necessary, therefore, to explore how to improve the transparency of LLE systems to help the wearer get gait information from LLE. This study conducted several auditory prompt experiments to determine the most adaptive movement feedforward method to improve transparency for an exoskeleton called AIDER. The results indicated that auditory movement feedforward could remind wearers of the next motion state. Moreover, the subjects felt more secure with auditory movement feedforward than with no feedforward when wearing AIDER.