Healthcare sensor system exploiting instrumented crutches for force measurement during assisted gait of exoskeleton users

Lancini, Matteo; Serpelloni, Mauro; Pasinetti, Simone; Guanziroli, Eleonora

doi:10.1109/jsen.2016.2579738

Cited by 25 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…In this experiment, we tested the feasibility of using the Picoflexx to acquire the 3-D point cloud of the foot during a test session where the user wears an exoskeleton and, using a pair of crutches, can stand up, step forward, and walk. The crutches are instrumented with a system measuring the forces acting on the upper limbs, based on strain gages mounted at the crutch base and on the signal acquisition and conditioning electronics, suitably developed for this application [29], [30].…”

Section: Testing the Picoflexx For Gait Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A very interesting example deals with the assisted gait of exoskeleton users, where the use of crutches is mandatory to allow the user to walk [28]. Sardini et al [29] and Lancini et al [30] present an extensive report of the research carried out by some of the authors to instrument the crutches for force measurement during the gait. The idea is to use the captured signals to feed the biomechanical model (OpenSim in that case) to estimate the internal forces at the upper limbs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Performance Analysis of the PMD Camboard Picoflexx Time-of-Flight Camera for Markerless Motion Capture Applications

Pasinetti

Hassan

Eberhardt

et al. 2019

IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas.

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The PMD Camboard Picoflexx Time-of-Flight (ToF) camera is evaluated against the Microsoft Kinect V2 to assess its performance in the context of markerless motion capture system for human body kinematics measurements. Various error sources such as the warm-up time, the depth distortion, the amplitude related error, the signal-to-noise ratio, and limitations such as their dependence on the illumination pattern and on the target distance, are studied and compared. The Picoflexx device is also compared to the Kinect V2 in relation to the quality of shape reconstructions, to assess its adequateness in modeling human body segments, and human body kinematics measurements. The final result of this paper is definitely useful to the research community, demonstrating that, even if the Picoflexx performs lower than the Kinect concerning the measurement performances, its behavior in estimating the volume of the body segments, the angles at the joints for human body kinematics, and the angle at the ankle in assisted walking applications is definitely satisfactory. These results are extremely significant to obtain accurate estimates of the parameters of the human body models in markerless motion capture applications, especially in laboratory-free environments, where compactness, lightweight, wireless connection, and low-power consumption are of outmost importance.

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Section: Testing the Picoflexx For Gait Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Performance Analysis of the PMD Camboard Picoflexx Time-of-Flight Camera for Markerless Motion Capture Applications

Pasinetti

Hassan

Eberhardt

et al. 2019

IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas.

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“…A set of forearm crutches were instrumented using a set of four 350 Ω strain gauges and a Bluetooth data acquisition system, as described in [10], to measure the axial force exerted by the subject.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring Upper Limbs During Exoskeleton-Assisted Gait Outdoors

Lancini

Pasinetti

Montini

et al. 2018

Biosystems &Amp; Biorobotics

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Powered exoskeleton can restore locomotion to spinal cord injury subjects but measuring their impact on the upper limbs is critical, since repeated excessive loads are strongly correlated to chronic pain at shoulder level. This paper presents a novel set of instrumented crutches, able to measure force exerted on the ground during walking sessions, thanks to embedded time-of-flight cameras and force sensors. The force sensors, along with an inertial module, assess the force acting on the upper limbs, while the time-of-flight cameras detects the gait phases looking at the feet position. The aim is to provide an affordable measuring system, without requiring a fully instrumented gait-lab, allowing the user-robot interaction to be measured in a more natural setting, closer to the foreseen working condition. The instrumented crutches are fully independent of any other instrumentation to allow a comparison of different exoskeleton models in terms of upper limb involvement.

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“…The effort of translating human locomotion principles into robotic solutions requires quantitative benchmarks to evaluate the human-like performance of robotic assistive devices (Neuhaus et al, 2011 ). In existing studies, analyses of robot-assisted gait have been conducted with data collected from a sensorimotor wearable robotic system (Raj et al, 2011 ), a versatile instrumented cane together with body worn sensors (Hassan et al, 2014 ; Lancini et al, 2016 ), and motor encoders (Griffin et al, 2017 ). Given these data, several outcomes can be used to benchmark the exoskeleton-assisted gait of SCI individuals against normal gait (Torricelli et al, 2015 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stability of Mina v2 for Robot-Assisted Balance and Locomotion

et al. 2018

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The assessment of the risk of falling during robot-assisted locomotion is critical for gait control and operator safety, but has not yet been addressed through a systematic and quantitative approach. In this study, the balance stability of Mina v2, a recently developed powered lower-limb robotic exoskeleton, is evaluated using an algorithmic framework based on center of mass (COM)- and joint-space dynamics. The equivalent mechanical model of the combined human-exoskeleton system in the sagittal plane is established and used for balance stability analysis. The properties of the Linear Linkage Actuator, which is custom-designed for Mina v2, are analyzed to obtain mathematical models of torque-velocity limits, and are implemented as constraint functions in the optimization formulation. For given feet configurations of the robotic exoskeleton during flat ground walking, the algorithm evaluates the maximum allowable COM velocity perturbations along the fore-aft directions at each COM position of the system. The resulting velocity extrema form the contact-specific balance stability boundaries (BSBs) of the combined system in the COM state space, which represent the thresholds between balanced and unbalanced states for given contact configurations. The BSBs are obtained for the operation of Mina v2 without crutches, thus quantifying Mina v2's capability of maintaining balance through the support of the leg(s). Stability boundaries in single and double leg supports are used to analyze the robot's stability performance during flat ground walking experiments, and provide design and control implications for future development of crutch-less robotic exoskeletons.

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Healthcare sensor system exploiting instrumented crutches for force measurement during assisted gait of exoskeleton users

Cited by 25 publications

References 19 publications

Performance Analysis of the PMD Camboard Picoflexx Time-of-Flight Camera for Markerless Motion Capture Applications

Performance Analysis of the PMD Camboard Picoflexx Time-of-Flight Camera for Markerless Motion Capture Applications

Monitoring Upper Limbs During Exoskeleton-Assisted Gait Outdoors

Stability of Mina v2 for Robot-Assisted Balance and Locomotion

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