Comparison of Impulses Experienced on Human Joints Walking on the Ground to Those Experienced Walking on a Treadmill

It has been reported that long-term exercise on a treadmill (running machine) may cause injury to the joints in a human's lower extremities. Previous works related to analysis of human walking motion are, however, mostly based on clinical statistics and experimental methodology. This paper proposes an analytical methodology. Specifically, this work deals with a comparison of normal walking on the ground and walking on a treadmill in regard to the external and internal impulses exerted on the joints of a human's lower extremities. First, a modeling procedure of impulses, impulse geometry, and impulse measure for the human lower extremity model will be briefly introduced and a new impulse measure for analysis of internal impulse is developed. Based on these analytical tools, we analyze the external and internal impulses through a planar 7-linked human lower extremity model. It is shown through simulation that the human walking on a treadmill exhibits greater internal impulses on the knee and ankle joints of the supporting leg when compared to that on the ground. In order to corroborate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, a force platform was developed to measure the external impulses exerted on the ground for the cases of the normal walking and walking on the treadmill. It is shown that the experimental results correspond well to the simulation results

Biomechanics

Biomechanics is a vast discipline within the field of Biomedical Engineering. It explores the underlying mechanics of how biological and physiological systems move. It encompasses important clinical applications to address questions related to medicine using engineering mechanics principles. Biomechanics includes interdisciplinary concepts from engineers, physicians, therapists, biologists, physicists, and mathematicians. Through their collaborative efforts, biomechanics research is ever changing and expanding, explaining new mechanisms and principles for dynamic human systems. Biomechanics is used to describe how the human body moves, walks, and breathes, in addition to how it responds to injury and rehabilitation. Advanced biomechanical modeling methods, such as inverse dynamics, finite element analysis, and musculoskeletal modeling are used to simulate and investigate human situations in regard to movement and injury. Biomechanical technologies are progressing to answer contemporary medical questions. The future of biomechanics is dependent on interdisciplinary research efforts and the education of tomorrow’s scientists

Muscle Synergies Facilitate Computational Prediction of Subject-Specific Walking Motions.

Researchers have explored a variety of neurorehabilitation approaches to restore normal walking function following a stroke. However, there is currently no objective means for prescribing and implementing treatments that are likely to maximize recovery of walking function for any particular patient. As a first step toward optimizing neurorehabilitation effectiveness, this study develops and evaluates a patient-specific synergy-controlled neuromusculoskeletal simulation framework that can predict walking motions for an individual post-stroke. The main question we addressed was whether driving a subject-specific neuromusculoskeletal model with muscle synergy controls (5 per leg) facilitates generation of accurate walking predictions compared to a model driven by muscle activation controls (35 per leg) or joint torque controls (5 per leg). To explore this question, we developed a subject-specific neuromusculoskeletal model of a single high-functioning hemiparetic subject using instrumented treadmill walking data collected at the subject's self-selected speed of 0.5 m/s. The model included subject-specific representations of lower-body kinematic structure, foot-ground contact behavior, electromyography-driven muscle force generation, and neural control limitations and remaining capabilities. Using direct collocation optimal control and the subject-specific model, we evaluated the ability of the three control approaches to predict the subject's walking kinematics and kinetics at two speeds (0.5 and 0.8 m/s) for which experimental data were available from the subject. We also evaluated whether synergy controls could predict a physically realistic gait period at one speed (1.1 m/s) for which no experimental data were available. All three control approaches predicted the subject's walking kinematics and kinetics (including ground reaction forces) well for the model calibration speed of 0.5 m/s. However, only activation and synergy controls could predict the subject's walking kinematics and kinetics well for the faster non-calibration speed of 0.8 m/s, with synergy controls predicting the new gait period the most accurately. When used to predict how the subject would walk at 1.1 m/s, synergy controls predicted a gait period close to that estimated from the linear relationship between gait speed and stride length. These findings suggest that our neuromusculoskeletal simulation framework may be able to bridge the gap between patient-specific muscle synergy information and resulting functional capabilities and limitations

Biomedical perspectives on locomotion in null gravity

A number of important features of various locomotor activities are discussed, and approaches to the study of these activities in the context of space flight are suggested. In particular, the magnitude of peak forces and the rates of change of force during terrestrial cycling, walking, and running are compared. It is shown that subtle changes in the conditions and techniques of locomotion can have a major influence on the biomechanical consequences to the skeleton. The various hypotheses that identify locomotor exercise as a countermeasure to bone demineralization during weightlessness deserve to be tested with some degree of biomechanical rigor. Various approaches for achieving such scrutiny are discussed

Influence of hip abductor fatigue on ACL loading during single-leg landing

A musculoskeletal simulation study is necessary to identify the cause-effect relationship between hip abductor weakness and ACL loading during athletic events such as landing and jumping. The purpose of this study was to identify the effect of weakness of hip abductors on lower extremity kinematics and ACL loading during single-leg landings. We hypothesized that hip abductor weakness would alter lower extremity joint kinematics. We also hypothesized that hip abductor weakness would increase ACL loading during single-leg landings. This study was a combination of a human experiment and a musculoskeletal modeling simulation. Ten healthy participants performed single-leg landing from a height of 45cm. 3D motion capture and ground reaction force data was used to drive muscle-driven musculoskeletal simulations. No differences between conditions were found in peak ACL loading (pre: 884.15± 124.80, post: 896.40 ± 110.37), knee flexion (pre: 65.54 ± 7.68, post: 66.74 ± 7.21), knee abduction (pre: 5.81 ± 6.18, post: 5.87 ± 5.42), and knee internal rotation angle (pre: 8.98 ± 6.93, post: 8.15 ± 8.04). The mean peak ACL loading (12.52 N/kg) was well aligned with the previous study in low-risk group (13.04 N/kg). This study raises questions of whether the fatigue protocol was demanding enough to see the differences in ACL loading and knee kinematics between the two conditions. Future study will focus on determining what extent weakness of hip abductors alter ACL loading during single-leg landings, and what compensation occurred in other joints during single-leg landings after hip abductor fatigue

Feedback Control of an Exoskeleton for Paraplegics: Toward Robustly Stable Hands-free Dynamic Walking

This manuscript presents control of a high-DOF fully actuated lower-limb exoskeleton for paraplegic individuals. The key novelty is the ability for the user to walk without the use of crutches or other external means of stabilization. We harness the power of modern optimization techniques and supervised machine learning to develop a smooth feedback control policy that provides robust velocity regulation and perturbation rejection. Preliminary evaluation of the stability and robustness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through the Gazebo simulation environment. In addition, preliminary experimental results with (complete) paraplegic individuals are included for the previous version of the controller.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Control System Magazine. This version addresses reviewers' concerns about the robustness of the algorithm and the motivation for using such exoskeleton

Comfort-Centered Design of a Lightweight and Backdrivable Knee Exoskeleton

This paper presents design principles for comfort-centered wearable robots and their application in a lightweight and backdrivable knee exoskeleton. The mitigation of discomfort is treated as mechanical design and control issues and three solutions are proposed in this paper: 1) a new wearable structure optimizes the strap attachment configuration and suit layout to ameliorate excessive shear forces of conventional wearable structure design; 2) rolling knee joint and double-hinge mechanisms reduce the misalignment in the sagittal and frontal plane, without increasing the mechanical complexity and inertia, respectively; 3) a low impedance mechanical transmission reduces the reflected inertia and damping of the actuator to human, thus the exoskeleton is highly-backdrivable. Kinematic simulations demonstrate that misalignment between the robot joint and knee joint can be reduced by 74% at maximum knee flexion. In experiments, the exoskeleton in the unpowered mode exhibits 1.03 Nm root mean square (RMS) low resistive torque. The torque control experiments demonstrate 0.31 Nm RMS torque tracking error in three human subjects.Comment: 8 pages, 16figures, Journa

New control strategies for neuroprosthetic systems

The availability of techniques to artificially excite paralyzed muscles opens enormous potential for restoring both upper and lower extremity movements with\ud neuroprostheses. Neuroprostheses must stimulate muscle, and control and regulate the artificial movements produced. Control methods to accomplish these tasks include feedforward (open-loop), feedback, and adaptive control. Feedforward control requires a great deal of information about the biomechanical behavior of the limb. For the upper extremity, an artificial motor program was developed to provide such movement program input to a neuroprosthesis. In lower extremity control, one group achieved their best results by attempting to meet naturally perceived gait objectives rather than to follow an exact joint angle trajectory. Adaptive feedforward control, as implemented in the cycleto-cycle controller, gave good compensation for the gradual decrease in performance observed with open-loop control. A neural network controller was able to control its system to customize stimulation parameters in order to generate a desired output trajectory in a given individual and to maintain tracking performance in the presence of muscle fatigue. The authors believe that practical FNS control systems must\ud exhibit many of these features of neurophysiological systems