Dynamic Walking Research Articles

A Wearable Co-Located Neural-Mechanical Signal Sensing Device for Simultaneous Bimodal Muscular Activity Detection.

The co-located and concurrent measurement of both muscular neural activity and muscular deformation is considered necessary in many applications, such as medical robotics, assistive exoskeletons and muscle function evaluations. Nevertheless, conventional muscle-related signal perception systems either detect only one of these modalities, or are made with rigid and bulky components that cannot provide conformal and flexible interface. Herein, a flexible, easy-to-fabricate, bimodal muscular activity sensing device, which collects neural and mechanical signal at the same muscle location, is reported. The sensing patch includes a screen-printed sEMG sensor, and a pressure-based muscular deformation sensor (PMD sensor) based on a highly sensitive, co-planar iontronic pressure sensing unit. Both sensors are integrated on a super-thin (25 μm) substrate. The sEMG sensor shows a high signal-to-noise ratio of 37.1 dB, and the PMD sensor sensor exhibits a high sensitivity of 70.9 kPa -1. The responses of the sensor to three types of muscle activities (isotonic, isometric, and passive stretching) were analyzed and validated by ultrasound imaging. Bimodal signals during dynamic walking experiments with different level-ground walking speeds were also investigated. The application of the bimodal sensor was verified in gait phase estimation, and results show that the assembly of both modalities significantly reduce (p < 0.05) the average estimation error across all subjects and all walking speeds to 3.82%. Demonstrations show the potential of this sensing device for informative evaluation of muscular activities, and its abilities in human-robot interaction.

Sharp changes in fractal basin of attraction in passive dynamic walking

A passive dynamic walker is a mechanical system that walks down a slope without any control, and gives useful insights into the dynamic mechanism of stable walking. This system shows specific attractor characteristics depending on the slope angle due to nonlinear dynamics, such as period-doubling to chaos and its disappearance by a boundary crisis. However, it remains unclear what happens to the basin of attraction. In our previous studies, we showed that a fractal basin of attraction is generated using a simple model over a critical slope angle by iteratively applying the inverse image of the Poincaré map, which has stretching and bending effects. In the present study, we show that the size and fractality of the basin of attraction sharply change many times by changing the slope angle. Furthermore, we improved our previous analysis to clarify the mechanisms for these changes and the disappearance of the basin of attraction based on the stretching and bending deformation in the basin formation process. These findings will improve our understanding of the governing dynamics to generate the basin of attraction in walking.

An Energy-Based Framework for Robust Dynamic Bipedal Walking Over Compliant Terrain

Abstract Bipedal locomotion over compliant terrain is an important and largely underexplored problem in the robotics community. Although robot walking has been achieved on some non-rigid surfaces with existing control methodologies, there is a need for a systematic framework applicable to different bipeds that enables stable locomotion over various compliant terrains. In this work, a novel energy-based framework is proposed that allows the dynamic locomotion of bipeds across a wide range of compliant surfaces. The proposed framework utilizes an extended version of the 3D Dual Spring-Loaded Inverted Pendulum (Dual-SLIP) model that supports compliant terrains, while a bioinspired controller is employed to regulate expected perturbations of extremely low ground-stiffness levels. An energy-based methodology is introduced for tuning the bioinspired controller to enable dynamic walking with robustness to a wide range of low ground-stiffness one-step perturbations. The proposed system and controller are shown to mimic the vertical Ground Reaction Force (GRF) responses observed in human walking over compliant terrains. Moreover, they succeed in handling repeated unilateral stiffness perturbations under specific conditions. This work can advance the field of biped locomotion by providing a biomimetic method for generating stable human-like walking trajectories for bipedal robots over various compliant surfaces. Furthermore, the concepts of the proposed framework could be incorporated into the design of controllers for lower-limb prostheses with adjustable stiffness to improve their robustness over compliant surfaces.

Walk in views: Multi-view path aggregation graph network for 3D shape analysis

The graph-based multi-view methods have achieved state-of-the-art results in 3D shape analysis tasks by taking advantage of graph convolutional networks (GCN) to process discrete data. However, the homogeneity of the traditional GCN aggregation operator leads to a problem in aggregating neighborhood information, i.e., if several views have the same neighbors, the same node embeddings will be generated, resulting in feature redundancy. To address this problem, we propose a Multi-view Path Aggregation Graph Network (MVPNet) for 3D shape analysis, which aims to extract a particular path from a graph composed of multiple views and aggregate it into an effective 3D shape descriptor. Specifically, we first extract a path in the graph through dynamic walking, and update the path status while searching for new nodes during the walking. Then we embed the position information of the nodes in the order of the nodes in the path. Finally, we propose to aggregate the features of a path employing a Path Transformer that is capable of handling ordered sequences. A path contains richer semantic and structural information than a traditional subgraph. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method, we conduct extensive experiments on three benchmark datasets, namely ModelNet, ShapeNetCore55 and MCB, and these experiments prove that the method outperforms the current methods in 3D shape classification and retrieval tasks.

Plantar somatosensory restoration enhances gait, speed perception, and motor adaptation.

Lower limb loss is a major insult to the body's nervous and musculoskeletal systems. Despite technological advances in prosthesis design, artificial limbs are not yet integrated into the body's physiological systems. Therefore, lower limb amputees (LLAs) experience lower balance confidence, higher fear of falls, and impaired gait compared with their able-bodied peers (ABs). Previous studies have demonstrated that restored sensations perceived as originating directly from the missing limb via neural interfaces improve balance and performance in certain ambulatory tasks; however, the effects of such evoked sensations on neural circuitries involved in the locomotor activity are not well understood. In this work, we investigated the effects of plantar sensation elicited by peripheral nerve stimulation delivered by multicontact nerve cuff electrodes on gait symmetry and stability, speed perception, and motor adaptation. We found that restored plantar sensation increased stance time and propulsive force on the prosthetic side, improved gait symmetry, and yielded an enhanced perception of prosthetic limb movement. Our results show that the locomotor adaptation among LLAs with plantar sensation became similar to that of ABs. These findings suggest that our peripheral nerve-based approach to elicit plantar sensation directly affects central nervous pathways involved in locomotion and motor adaptation during walking. Our neuroprosthesis provided a unique model to investigate the role of somatosensation in the lower limb during walking and its effects on perceptual recalibration after a locomotor adaptation task. Furthermore, we demonstrated how plantar sensation in LLAs could effectively increase mobility, improve walking dynamics, and possibly reduce fall risks.

Complex dynamics of the passive biped robot with flat feet: Gait bifurcation, intermittency and crisis

During the past decades, the walking dynamics of different types of passive biped robots have garnered significant attention. This paper investigates the complex dynamics of a passive flat-footed robot, encompassing both the local bifurcation of limit cycles and global bifurcation, resulting in significant changes in the system’s walking pattern. To identify the robot’s dynamic behavior, the Lyapunov Exponents (LEs) are calculated using the small orthogonal perturbation vectors method. The obtained LEs diagram also unveils several subtle periodic windows scattered within the chaotic region, where interior crisis and intermittency occur. Moreover, two new kinds of gaits that coexist with the traditional period-1 ones are found. Of particular significance is the discovery of the double boundary crisis that caused by the critical period-3 unstable periodic orbit, and this crisis serves as the fundamental reason to the falling down on slopes of the flat-footed robots. By gaining a better understanding of the nature of passive dynamic walking, it becomes possible to design more efficient controllers that impose less stringent torque requirements on biped walking robots.

Composite hybrid inflation: dilaton and waterfall pions

We investigate the possibility that inflation originates from a composite field theory, in terms of an effective chiral Lagrangian involving a dilaton and pions. The walking dynamics of the theory constrain the potential in a specific way, where the anomalous dimensions of operators involving pions play a crucial role. For realistic values of the anomalous dimensions, we find a successful hybrid inflation occurring via the dilaton-inflaton, with the pions acting as waterfall fields. Compositeness consistency strongly constrain the model, predicting a dilaton scale fχ ∼ 𝒪 (1) in unit of the Planck scale, an inflation scale H inf ∼ 1010 GeV, and the pion scale around 1014 GeV. We further discuss possible phenomenological consequences of this theory.

Adaptive robust control for biped walking under uncertain external forces

Adaptability and robustness are important expressions of the intelligent walking ability of biped robots. This paper is concerned with the problem of dynamical biped walking and robust control of biped robots under external forces. Due to the characteristics of strong coupling and hybrid, the robotic system is modeled as a rigid kinematic chain with Lagrange equations. A novel adaptive feedback controller is proposed based on sliding mode control (SMC) and hybrid zero dynamics. The novelty of the proposed work lies in taking the uncertainty of upper-bound error into consideration. The hybrid robust control is mentioned to approximate unknown dynamic functions with the adaptive weight. The restricted Poincare return map is utilized to analyze the stability of a nonlinear impulsive system. It ensures that the flow of the continuous subsystem can pass through the impact cross section. Finally, the simulation results illustrate that the proposed adaptive SMC control system can favorably track the reference trajectories, even when a fault occurs, which verifies the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Study on human-SRL synchronized walking based on coupled impedance.

Supernumerary robotic limbs (SRL) is a novel category of wearable robotics. Unlike prostheses (compensation for human limbs) and exoskeletons (augmentation of human limbs), SRL focuses on expanding human limbs and enhancing human activities, perception, and operation through the mutual collaboration of mechanical limbs and human limbs. The SRL of lower limbs are attached to the human waist, synchronized with the human walking in the forward direction, and can carry weight independently in the vertical direction. In order to enhance the synchronization performance of the human-machine system during walking and minimize interference with human gait, it is essential to investigate the coupling dynamics within the human-SRL system. To facilitate our research, this paper focuses on relatively ideal working conditions: level road surfaces, no additional weight-bearing on the SRL, and humans walking in a straight line without any turns. We build upon the passive dynamic walking theory and utilize the human-SRL system model established by MIT to develop a coupling system model. Through numerical simulations, we identify the optimal values for the stiffness and damping coefficients of the human-machine connection. Additionally, we have designed the wheel-legged SRL structure and constructed the SRL control system for experimental validation. It is found that a better synchronization of the human-machine walking process can be achieved by configuring suitable spring and damping units in the human-machine connection part. In this study, we explored the concept of SRL and its potential benefits for enhancing human motion, conducting simulations and experiments based on the coupled dynamics of human-SRL systems. The results indicate that by equipping the human-machine connection component with suitable spring and damping units, synchronization during the walking process can be improved.

INSPIIRE - A Modular and Passive Exoskeleton to Investigate Human Walking and Balance.

Powered exoskeletons for SCI patients are mainly limited by their inability to balance dynamically during walking. To investigate and understand the control strategies of human bipedal locomotion, we developed INSPIIRE, a passive exoskeleton. This device constrains the movements of able-bodied subjects to only hip and knee flexions and extensions, similar to most current active exoskeletons. In this paper, we detail the modular design and the mechanical implementation of the device. In preliminary experiments, we tested whether humans are able to handle dynamic walking without crutches, despite the limitation of lateral foot placement and locked ankles. Five healthy subjects showed the ability to stand and ambulate at an average speed of 1 m/s after 5 minutes of self-paced training. We found that while the hip abduction/adduction is constrained, the foot placement was made possible thanks to the pelvis yaw and residual flexibility of the exoskeleton segments in the lateral plan. This result points out that INSPIIRE is a reliable instrument to learn sagitally-constrained human locomotion, and the potential of investigating more dynamic walking, which is shown as possible in this implementation, even if only flexion/extension of the hip and knee are allowed.

Effect of foot stato-dynamic disorders on hemodynamics of the lower limb using strain-gauge plethysmography

BackgroundThe plantar venous pump (PVP), composed of deep plantar veins, is the most distal contributor to venous return from the lower limbs. A pressing need still exists to assess how plantar muscle contraction and gait affect PVP function, how foot stato-dynamic disorders (FSDs) can contribute to venous insufficiency, and how venous return can be optimally stimulated. Our first objective is to compare the venous blood hemodynamics in lower limbs between healthy subjects with a FSD and healthy subjects without a FSD to understand the influence of foot morphology in the performance of the PVP. Our second objective is to evaluate whether PVP function varies with different plantar pressures. MethodsA total of 52 healthy volunteers (26 feet with a normal arch as the control group and 26 feet with dysmorphism [13 flat feet and 13 hollow feet]) were included. Strain-gauge plethysmography was performed 8 cm above the medial malleolus at different conditions of PVP stimulation: (1) toe flexion, (2) intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC) with and without an insole, and (3) 3-km/h speed walking on a treadmill barefoot, with shoes, and with shoes and insoles. From the strain-gauge plethysmography, we measured the venous blood ejection fraction (EF). From the pressure sensor placed at the midfoot on the plantar arch during IPC, we obtained the maximal pressure (N/cm2). ResultsToe flexion allowed for ejection of an average of 20% of the total venous volume in both groups. IPC and gait generated a mean EF superior to 100% of the available venous volume. The maximal pressure applied at the midfoot during IPC was lower than the pressure set. No significant differences in the EF or maximal pressure were observed between the two groups. The mean EF was not significantly affected for the pronator and supinator walkers compared with those with normal walking dynamics. Wearing shoes did not significantly affect the mean EF. However, wearing insoles during gait significantly increased the venous return in feet with plantar dysmorphism. ConclusionsTo the best of our knowledge, this clinical study is the first to assess the PVP function in 52 healthy volunteers with and without FSDs. We found that wearing shoes did not significantly affect PVP efficiency but that wearing morphologically adapted insoles significantly improved the venous return in the dysmorphic feet. In our sample of healthy volunteers, the differences observed between the control group and feet with FSDs were not statistically significant.

Autonomous navigation of underactuated bipedal robots in height-constrained environments

Navigating a large-scaled robot in unknown and cluttered height-constrained environments is challenging. Not only is a fast and reliable planning algorithm required to go around obstacles, the robot should also be able to change its intrinsic dimension by crouching in order to travel underneath height-constrained regions. There are few mobile robots that are capable of handling such a challenge, and bipedal robots provide a solution. However, as bipedal robots have nonlinear and hybrid dynamics, trajectory planning while ensuring dynamic feasibility and safety on these robots is challenging. This paper presents an end-to-end autonomous navigation framework which leverages three layers of planners and a variable walking height controller to enable bipedal robots to safely explore height-constrained environments. A vertically actuated spring-loaded inverted pendulum (vSLIP) model is introduced to capture the robot’s coupled dynamics of planar walking and vertical walking height. This reduced-order model is utilized to optimize for long-term and short-term safe trajectory plans. A variable walking height controller is leveraged to enable the bipedal robot to maintain stable periodic walking gaits while following the planned trajectory. The entire framework is tested and experimentally validated using a bipedal robot Cassie. This demonstrates reliable autonomy to drive the robot to safely avoid obstacles while walking to the goal location in various kinds of height-constrained cluttered environments.

Sitting And Standing Balance Assessment Tools In Patients With Spinal Cord Injury: A Systematic Review

Background: The effectiveness of interventions depend on utility of a specific common set of clinical tools that has ability to assess important clinical outcomes.&#x0D; Objective: To identify clinical assessment tools for assessing unsupported sitting and standing balance in SCI population.&#x0D; Methods: PubMed access provided articles with key words “spinal cord injury,” and “balance assessment”. Studies describing measurement of balance in subjects with SCI, were included.&#x0D; Results: After thorough screening 9 articles showed : 3 clinical scales assessed sitting balance and seated postural control, 1 clinical scale assessed standing function, 4 scale assessed functional mobility, static and dynamic walking balance; one scale assessed risk of fall during walking and 3 sensor based tools were identified.&#x0D; Conclusion: It was observed that majority studies showed assessment of standing and walking balance; and both clinical performance based and sensor based tools were used for balance assessment.&#x0D; Key words: balance assessment, spinal cord injury.

Self‐Organized Stick Insect‐Like Locomotion under Decentralized Adaptive Neural Control: From Biological Investigation to Robot Simulation

AbstractLiving animals and legged robots share similar challenges for movement control. In particular, the investigation of neural control mechanisms for the self‐organized locomotion of insects and hexapod robots can be informative for other fields. The Annam stick insect Medauroidea extradentata is used as a template to develop a biorobotic model to infer walking self‐organization with strongly heterogeneous leg lengths. Body dimensions and data on the walking dynamics of the actual stick insect are used for the development of a neural control mechanism, generating self‐organized gait patterns that correspond to the real insect observations. The combination of both investigations not only proposes solutions for distributed neural locomotion control but also enables insights into the neural equipment of the biological template. Decentralized neural central pattern generation is utilized with phase modulation based on foot contact feedback to generate adaptive periodic base patterns and a radial basis function premotor network in each leg based on the target trajectories of actual stick insect legs during walking for complex intralimb coordination and self‐organized interlimb coordination control. Furthermore, based on both study objects, a robot with heterogeneous leg lengths is constructed to preliminary validate the findings from the simulations and real insect observations.

Gait-combined closed-loop brain stimulation can improve walking dynamics in Parkinsonian gait disturbances: a randomised-control trial

ObjectiveGait disturbance lowers activities of daily living in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and related disorders. However, the effectiveness of pharmacological, surgical and rehabilitative treatments is limited. We recently developed...

Walking in Social Groups: Role of Intra-Group Interactions

Interestingly, the interactions between members of a social group and across people of different social groups often happen through mutual understanding and reciprocate behaviour by means of gestures or eye contact. A controlled laboratory experiment is used to test the effect of interactions between members of a social group and across social groups on the walk dynamics of people. This study tries to discover the trade-off made by people between the need to communicate/interact between group members and the need to avoid collision with opposing pedestrians in a bidirectional flow. Thirty adults participated in a series of controlled experiments. The individuals and group characteristics were compared to study the effect of social groups. Spatial patterns/group formations, average walking speeds, and deviation from the desired direction of motion were assessed. The analysis shows that time to cross the platform is the least when triads adopt the river and inverted V group formations. In contrast, V and line-abreast group formations require slightly more time and are better suited to promote interactions between the group members. Irrespective of the initial formation adopted by participants, there is a higher tendency for the groups to shift to river formation or inverted V formations. This may be a result of the higher group speeds observed in the Inverted V and river formations, which accelerates their progress in the direction of motion. The understanding of walking dynamics of social groups from this study can enable better planning of pedestrian facilities and crowded events.

Novel neuromuscular controller application method to improve the balance recovery ability of lower limb exoskeletons

In recent years, several biological frameworks have been proposed to imitate human motion and control lower limb exoskeletons. Compared with position or impedance tracking of defined joint trajectories, this kind of strategy can reproduce human walking dynamics, and tolerate external disturbance. The output of this kind of strategy is anticipatory feedforward torque, which means that the controller needs to have sufficient prior knowledge on neurology. Moreover, lower limb exoskeletons are fundamentally different from humans, which weakens the ability of the controller to resist external internal interference. Thus, pure feedforward control hardly achieves a flexible movement like that of a human. In this study, we propose a feedback control framework based on repetitive learning control (RLC) to enhance the anti-interference capability of a neuromuscular controller. The controller consists of two parts: (1) A data-driven morphed nonlinear phase oscillator is used as a state observer to learn the changing law of an exoskeleton’s posture and center of mass and to construct a stable limit cycle in the state space. (2) A posture and centroid tracker based on RLC is utilized to track the output of oscillators and achieve a natural balance recovery process. Simulation and experimental results show that the integrated control system has a better control effect than the simple biological control method.

Multistability of gaits, the basin of attraction and its external topology in the simplest passive walking model on stairs

For the passive walking robot, the basin of attraction is very small and thin, and thus makes it a great challenge to produce stable passive dynamic walking. This paper reports systematically the effect of initial conditions on gait dynamics of the simplest passive walking model on stairs. We find two new gaits with period-3 and period-4, and they both lead to higher periodic gaits and chaos by period-doubling bifurcations. The critical period-3 unstable orbit generated via the cyclic-fold bifurcation takes part in the annihilation of chaotic attractors twice, and this double boundary crisis becomes the main cause to the falling down on stairs of the passive walker. In particular, we compute the Lyapunov exponents to verify the effectiveness of the bifurcation process of these new gaits. More importantly, through analyzing the topology of phase space, the external domain of basin of attraction is classified in detail and marked precisely with different falling patterns. We believe such findings to add significantly to the knowledge of the selection of initial values and to be potentially helpful in the design and optimization of passive walking robots.

Design and analysis of a multi-DOF compliant gait rehabilitation robot

Robot-assisted rehabilitation is a rapidly advancing field whereby robotic devices are used for the treatment of disabilities. Mechanism design and actuation of these devices play important roles in the treatment and the non-ergonomic designs may even increase the cardiorespiratory load and cause discomfort leading to further gait disorders. This article identifies crucial design and actuation aspects of gait rehabilitation robots and presents the first intrinsically compliant gait robot design with three actuated and five passive degrees of freedom, alleviating the prevalent issues. The gait robot joints remain aligned with the human anatomical joints during the swing and the stance phases due to the use of special bushes and dampers. The intrinsically compliant actuators on the new gait robot make it safe to work with human subjects. Increased degrees of freedom allow for natural walking dynamics instead of canceling or constraining them. The robot firmware, including the kinematic modeling, is designed using multiple adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system to save on the computational time of the robot controller. The new robot design is finally validated for its intended use in gait rehabilitation, by employing a fuzzy logic controller and evaluating the position, velocity, and acceleration profiles of its joints.

3D dynamic DNA walker traveling on DNA micelles coupled CRISPR-Cas12a nucleases to recover electrochemiluminescence signal for microcystin-LR detection

3D dynamic DNA walker traveling on DNA micelles coupled CRISPR-Cas12a nucleases sensor was proposed to recover electrochemiluminescence (ECL) signal for microcystin-LR (MC-LR) detection. The 3D DNA walker was anchored in DNA micelles, self-assembled from amphiphilic DNA by the hydrophobicity of cholesterol and the electrostatic repulsion of the phosphate backbone. By the MC-LR stimulus, the released swing arm DNA hybridized with the track DNA while cleaving the hairpin structure to obtain the track DNA fragments. The track DNA fragments hybridized with the H1 hairpin structure to form a double-helix structure with PAM sequences, which could activate the Cas12a nucleases for trans-cleavage of the Fc probe-labeled ssDNA to induce ECL signal recovery. The DNA micelles maintained the morphological stability and free diffusion ability of the 3D DNA walker in the biofluidic state and overcome the collisional hindrance for facilitating efficient intraparticle and interparticle walking motions. Meanwhile, the coupled trans-cleavage activity of Cas12a nucleases improved the signal-amplification performance and achieved higher sensitivity with a detection limit of 0.015 pM. Acceptable results confirmed the ability of DNA micelles to stabilize 3D DNA walkers and the validated cleavage activity of Cas12a nucleases.