7 accepted papers
This paper explores the effects of a swing phase stumble recovery controller in a swing-assist prosthesis. The prosthesis detects a stumble event and employs either a lowering recovery response - wherein the user's swing is truncated, and the leg is prepared for loading- or an elevating recovery res…
Powered lower-limb exoskeletons have been shown to assist and augment walking, but most such devices do not currently have the ability to explicitly accommodate a stumble perturbation. A major challenge in doing so is identifying a stumble event and selecting in real-time which recovery strategy (el…
This paper presents preliminary results assessing the efficacy of a backpack-worn cold-gas thruster to potentially arrest impending backwards falls. Specifically, a nitrogen-based cold gas thruster system was integrated into a backpack-worn prototype device, and experiments were conducted to assess…
While lower limb exoskeletons for above-ground locomotion have been emerging, few attempts have been made to develop an exoskeleton to augment human swimming. Such efforts are hindered by a lack of knowledge surrounding the kinematics and kinetics of human swimming. This paper presents the design of…
This paper presents a stumble recovery controller for a knee exoskeleton that detects a stumble perturbation; selects an anticipated recovery strategy; and provides appropriate recovery assistance. In order to assess the efficacy of the controller in providing an assistive response to a stumble pert…
This paper introduces the SCCA Hand, a five motor robot hand developed using a minimalist design approach that focused on grasping abilities in real-world environments. Notable features include a novel bidirectional tendon underactuated finger design that biases actuator force toward finger flexion,…
This paper presents a control approach for myoelectric transhumeral prostheses that coordinates the movement of the elbow joint with the movement of the (intact) shoulder. The method combines input from a pair of surface electromyograms (EMG) inputs with information from an inertia measurement unit