Development of a foot-wheel driving exoskeleton for moving assistance of paraplegic patients

摘要

Paraplegic patients need assistant devices to manage daily lives due to moving disability of lower limbs, standing and moving always being their most pressing needs. A foot-wheel driving exoskeleton for moving assistance in a standing posture is introduced in this study, which uses a motor-belt-wheel driving mechanism at each foot to propel the whole system and a wireless handle to control the moving status. The overall design concept and detailed specifications of each module are presented in this paper. This study has completed the using experiments on two healthy subjects and a T10 paraplegic patient. The motion analysis was performed in a 3D gait analysis system to evaluate the fluctuation of the joint angle and corresponding response of major muscles in a process from start to a 4-s operation. The kinematics and EMG results showed that this exoskeleton could assist the upper body-abled user to complete the upright move without the help from others and the musculus triceps brachii and brachioradialis play an important role in maintaining the balance and counteract the motion fluctuation.