Development of a novel autonomous lower extremity exoskeleton robot for walking assistance

Abstract

Today, exoskeletons are widely applied to provide walking assistance for patients with lower limb motor incapacity. Most existing exoskeletons are under-actuated, resulting in a series of problems, e.g., interference and unnatural gait during walking. In this study, we propose a novel intelligent autonomous lower extremity exoskeleton (Auto-LEE), aiming at improving the user experience of wearable walking aids and extending their application range. Unlike traditional exoskeletons, Auto-LEE has 10 degrees of freedom, and all the joints are actuated independently by direct current motors, which allows the robot to maintain balance in aiding walking without extra support. The new exoskeleton is designed and developed with a modular structure concept and multi-modal human-robot interfaces are considered in the control system. To validate the ability of self-balancing bipedal walking, three general algorithms for generating walking patterns are researched, and a preliminary experiment is implemented.