Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

Human orthosis design is generally restricted to stiff and passive mechanisms. Given the presence of biarticular muscle-tendon complexes which are important in energy transfer and joint function coordination, improvements to these orthoses may be achieved through mechanical compliance, damping, motors and generators which mimic and augment these characteristics. Robot surrogates can be used to provide insights into normal and pathological locomotion and can be used as robust and deterministic design and test platforms for these next generation orthoses. Advances in powered prostheses or orthoses, such as the BLEEX exoskeleton, have relied on power-hungry technologies, requiring the use of batteries or other power sources. Additionally, generative knee orthoses have undergone human trials and been shown to be capable of moderate conversion of human subject kinetic energy to electrical energy. However, in neither of these cases has electrical energy transfer been implemented at an inter-joint level. The long term objective is the development of robotic orthoses for gait correction and augmentation which are suitable for daily use in home and out-patient contexts. In the short term, a robotic test platform will be developed which is capable of simulating healthy and pathological gait. As well, orthosis motoring and regenerative robotic subsystems must be developed which can modulate energy usage at each joint and which can transfer energy between joints, mimicking and augmenting existing neuromechanic subsystems. By applying regenerated joint power at specific points in the gait cycle it will be possible to extend the usable life of prostheses and orthoses, making them more effective.