Open Collections

Developing control strategies to mitigate injury after falling backward with a lower limb exoskeleton

University of British Columbia

Powered lower limb exoskeletons (LLEs) are wearable robotic aids that provide mobility assistance for people with mobility impairments. Despite their advanced design, LLEs are still far from being effective assistive devices that can be used to perform activities of daily living. The main challenge in the operation of a LLE is to ensure that balance is maintained. However, maintaining an upright stance is not always achievable and regardless of the quality of user skill and training, inevitably falls will occur. Currently, there is no control strategy developed or implemented in LLEs that help reduce the user’s risk of injury in the case of an unexpected fall. In this thesis, an optimization methodology was developed and used to create a safer strategy for exoskeletons falling backwards in a simulation environment. Due to the data available regarding the biomechanics of human falls, the optimization methodology was first developed to study falls with simulation parameters characteristic of healthy people. The resulting optimal fall strategy in this study had similar kinematic and dynamic characteristics to the findings of previous studies on human falls. Rapid knee flexion at the onset of the fall, and knee extension prior to ground contact are examples of these characteristics. Following this, the optimization methodology was extended to include the characteristics of an exoskeleton. The results revealed that the hip impact velocity was reduced by 58% when the optimal fall strategy was employed compared to the case where the exoskeleton fell with locked joints. It was also shown that in both cases of optimal human and human-exoskeleton falls, the models contacted the ground with an upright trunk with a near-zero trunk angular velocity to avoid head impact. These results achieved the thesis goal of developing an effective safe fall control strategy. This strategy was then implemented in a prototype exoskeleton test device. The experimental results validated the simulation outcomes and support the feasibility of implementing this control strategy. Future studies are needed to further examine the effectiveness of applying this strategy in an actual LLE.

Text

2017-01-21

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/60175

Mechanical Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/