Exploiting the Invariant Structure for Controlling Multiple Muscles in Anthropomorphic Legs: III. Reproducing Hemiparetic Walking from Equilibrium Point- Based Synergies.

Abstract

In the development of a robotic therapy system, tests must be first run to guarantee safety and performance of the system before actual human trials. Lower-limb robotic therapy system has an inherit injury risk and a human-like stunt robot is desirable. This study proposes such an alternative: anthropomorphic legs with a bio-inspired control method affording a human-like test bench for the robotic therapy system. Electromyography (EMG) of a mildly hemiparetic stroke patient was measured during body-weight-supported treadmill walking. The motor strategy of the hemiparetic gait was extracted from the EMG data and applied to the control of the anthropomorphic legs. We employed the concept of equilibrium point (EP) to extract motor synergies and strategy. The EP- based synergies expressed by the composites of muscle mechanical impedance clarified motor strategy including aspects related to the impedance and virtual trajectory. Results show that the EP-based synergies were able to characterize neuromuscular patterns of pathological gait. The anthropomorphic legs were able to reproduce patient's gait by mimicking the EP-based synergies.