Coordinated control strategy for robotic-assisted gait training with partial body weight support

Abstract

Walking is the most basic and essential part of the activities of daily living. To enable the elderly and non-ambulatory gait-impaired patients, the repetitive practice of this task, a novel gait training robot (GTR) was designed followed the end-effector principle, and an active partial body weight support (PBWS) system was introduced to facilitate successful gait training. For successful establishment of a walking gait on the GTR with PBWS, the motion laws of the GTR were planned to enable the phase distribution relationships of the cycle step, and the center of gravity (COG) trajectory of the human body during gait training on the GTR was measured. A coordinated control strategy was proposed based on the impedance control principle. A robotic prototype was developed as a platform for evaluating the design concepts and control strategies. Preliminary gait training with a healthy subject was implemented by the robotic-assisted gait training system and the experimental results are encouraging.