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Veneva I,
Institute of Mechanics, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences,
Acad. G. Bonchev Str., Bl.4, Sofia 1113, Bulgaria;
Email: veneva@imbm.bas.bg
1. Introduction
Active ankle-foot orthoses (AAFOs) are orthotic devices
intended to assist or to restore the motions of the ankle-
foot complex and are based on force-controlled actuator
and biologically inspired micro-control schemes.
There have different ideas of an actively powered orthotic
device using hydraulic and pneumatic devices or DC
motors which have been researched to provide active
assistance to the individuals with paraplegia, stroke or
drop foot [2, 3]. An active ankle-foot orthosis with a
force-controllable series elastic actuator (SEA) was also Figure 1. Ankle-foot orthosis with direct drive actuator
designed by Blaya and Herr [1] capable of controlling
orthotic joint stiffness and damping for plantar and Active ankle-foot orthosis is a system with one degree of
dorsiflexion ankle motions. freedom which foot segment is connected to the shank
segment by a rotational joint. A direct drive actuator is
We propose an autonomous adaptive device for actuation, attached laterally to the AFO. A feedback with
data acquisition and control of active ankle-foot orthosis. Proportional-Integral-Derivative control was used to
The aim of the work is to present an autonomous control
680-080 100
estimate the trajectory of the foot and position the monitoring mode these data are transferred through the
actuated foot segment of AFO when the foot rotates about RS-232 lines to a graphical user interface for visualization
the ankle. Realizing flexion/extension the actuator applies and interpretation.
a torque adequate to the joint position of the human ankle
during level ground walking [6, 7]. To determine system
state, the sensors measured ankle angle, foot position and
gait speed. During the swing phase, where the clearance
of the toe is released, electro-mechanical system must
actively adjust the flexion of the orthosis by actuator
movement and keep this position till the heel strike
appears. Thus the ankle torque has to be modulated from
cycle-to-cycle throughout the duration of a particular gait
phase.
3. System Design Figure 3. Two tactile sensor arrays TR incorporated in the foot
part of AFO and TL in the insole of the healthy leg.
The complete autonomous system consists of four
primary components - sensing, data acquisition, A very important design characteristic is the system
communication and friendly oriented software for power source. One of the main objectives of this system is
interpretation of the data (fig.2). to reach a significant level of autonomy.
Many batteries technologies have been lately developed.
Nowadays Lithium Ion is the battery technology imposed
in market having a good power density.
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Additional feedback element - angular position sensor RP
is attached to the moving parts of the motor assemblies to
sense the velocity and position.
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phase TR of walking. The microcontroller receives the 4. Experimental Results
diagnostic information about the system from the sensors
and generates the torque command to the driver. The simulation tool used to simulate the
electromechanical system was Matlab Simulink. A
Simulink block diagram model is a graphical
representation of a mathematical model of the dynamic
system where the orthosis is represented by its
SimMechanics model and the actuator is represented by
its transfer function [6].
We simulate the model in Inverse Dynamics mode to
compute the joint torque required to rotate the foot in
desired position. Our aim is to analyze the torque,
necessary to produce at the ankle joint 15 degrees
rotation. During the simulation the geometry of the
orthosis is presented as a double pendulum.
Tz = Td Tc Tg , (3)
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an axis through its center of mass, parallel to the ankle angles, foot (heel and toe) contacts and foot velocities.
axis. The relation is shown by equation Angle sensor (rotary potentiometer) detects joint position
and provides a signal ADC during swing and stance
J = J33 + md2 = 3.7 +0.7225 = 0.01612(kg.m2) (5)
phase. The tactile sensors acted like a switch, turning off
Once we know the actuator parameters and computed when the foot was over the sensor and turning on when
torque, we can verify that this is the correct answer of the the leg moved away from it.
system simulation by analyzing driven angular motion for
During walking the microcontroller collects sensor data in
the articulation of the ankle joint (foot) in Matlab
four VS buffers, ADC buffer and PWM duty-cycle buffer.
Simulink (fig.11).
In monitoring mode the data are transmitted to the PC
Dynamic2::ANGLE1_ANGLE
through the RS232 serial interface. A graphical program
130
module written in MATLAB receives the data and
120 visualizes it in its own window, giving us the
110
representation of the signals (fig.12). VS0 and VS1 are
M e a su re
100
90
80
recorded digital signals from the tactile sensors mounted
70 on the orthosis. Signals from the lower insole of the
healthy leg are VS2 and VS3.
60
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Time (Sec)
Dynamic2::Velocity (deg/sec)
42,37527548
32,37527548
22,37527548
12,37527548
M e a su re
2,375275483
-7,624724517 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
-17,62472452
-27,62472452
-37,62472452
Time (Sec)
Dynamic2::Acceleration (deg/sec^2)
52,62589887
42,62589887
32,62589887
22,62589887
M e a su re
12,62589887
2,625898875
-7,374101125 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
-17,37410113
-27,37410113
-37,37410113
-47,37410113
Time (Sec)
Dynamic2::ServoMotorNetLoad (mm N)
1,85152E+11
1,65152E+11
1,45152E+11
M e a su re
1,25152E+11
1,05152E+11
85151969830
65151969830
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Time (Sec)
104
Results indicate that sensing shows reliable and accurate The system can be used for assisting the human walking
gait phase detection possibilities. First results indicate that in cases of injured ankle-foot complex and biomechanical
data from the sensors already gave enough redundant analysis of human locomotion.
information for reliably detect initial contact (heel strike)
and toe-off in normal walking. Detecting heel-up and
stance, and ankle joint angle are available using this Acknowledgement
configuration of the sensors. During walking angles in the
orthosis ankle joint could be estimated within 3 degrees The study was supported by European Social Fund
accuracy using only a rotational potentiometer. (Grants BG051PO001-3.3.04/40).
5. Discussion References
The features of normal walking are important for overall [1] J. Blaya, H. Herr, Adaptive Control of a Variable-
autonomous control and are not achievable with most Impedance Ankle-Foot Orthosis to Assist Drop-foot Gait,
mechanically passive orthoses. We assumed that normal IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems & Rehabilitation
gait is symmetrical and that deviation from a reference engineering, vol. 12(1), 2004, 24-31.
pattern is a sign of disability. To analyze asymmetry, the
step time of the affected side (TR) was subtracted from [2] S. Kaneoko, H. Yano, A new concept of dynamic
the unaffected side (TL). The difference in stride lengths orthosis for paraplegia: the weight bearing control (wbc)
should be zero for symmetric gait. orthosis, Prosthetics and Orthotics Intern., 1997, pp. 222
228.
The objective of the control algorithm was to select
appropriate ankle torque value for each state. That would [3] N. Wasylewski, B. Ruthenberg, An experimental
result in an improved gait in terms of biological realism device for investigating the force and power requirements
and symmetry between affected and unaffected sides. of a powered gait orthosis, Journal of Rehabilitation
Specifically, the aim of the controller was to achieve a Research and Development, 1997, pp 203213.
biologically realistic maximum flexion angle during the
swing phase and a biologically realistic early stance [4] I.P. Veneva, Autonomous Control System for Gait
flexion/extension at the heel strike critical to overall drop Analysis, Proc. 9th International Robotics Conf., Varna,
foot. Bulgaria, 2007, pp. 230-236
The developed device provides broad information for both
control and gait analysis. The data from the sensors are [5] I.P. Veneva, Y.E. Toshev, Control algorithm for
used in every step from the control algorithm. The ankle-foot orthosis and applications, Proc. 9th
experimental data discussed in this paper can be used in International Robotics Conf., Varna, Bulgaria, 2007, pp.
cases of the drop foot treatment and lower limb 225-230
rehabilitation to enhance the AAFO functional
performance and to improve the patient gait. [6] I.P. Veneva, G. Boiadjiev, Mathematical Model of
Electromechanical Controlled Module in Orthopedics,
Proc. 6th Int. Conf. on Bionics and Prosthetics,
Biomechanics and Mechanics, Mechatronics and
6. Conclusion Robotics, Varna, Bulgaria, 2008, pp. 22-26.
The adaptation schemes presented here automatically
[7] I.P. Veneva, PID Control for Active Ankle-foot
modulate actuator torque in order to optimize the heel-to-
orthosis Positioning, Edition Machine Union, Year V,
forefoot transition throughout the stance and the swing
Vol.6, 2008, ISSN1310-3946, pp. 52-57
phases of walking. The proposed possibilities to integrate
active systems into AFOs hinge joint provide gait control
[8] I.P. Veneva, Design and Implementation of Device for
during real-use situations and enhance the functional
Control of Active Ankle-Foot Orthosis, Proceedings of
performance using only local sensing and computation.
the 11th National Congress on Theoretical and Applied
The system controls the orthosis functionalities, records Mechanics, Borovets, Bulgaria, 2009
the data received from sensors during the gait and
transfers recorded data to graphical user interface for
visualization and future analysis.
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