title: Voluntary motion support control of Robot Suit HAL triggered by bioelectrical signal for hemiplegia.
abstract: Our goal is to enhance the quality of life of patients with hemiplegia by means of an active motion support system that assists the impaired motion such as to make it as close as possible to the motion of an able bodied person. We have developed the Robot Suit HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) to actively support and enhance the human motor functions. The purpose of the research presented in this paper is to propose the required control method to support voluntarily motion using a trigger based on patient's bioelectrical signal. Clinical trials were conducted in order to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed control method. The first stage of the trials, described in this paper, involved the participation of one hemiplegic patient who is not able to bend his right knee. As a result, the motion support provided by the HAL moved the paralyzed knee joint according to his intention and improved the range of the subject's knee flexion. The first evaluation of the control method with one subject showed promising results for future trials to explore the effectiveness for a wide range of types of hemiplegia.
authors.affiliation: Department of Intelligent Interaction Technologies, University of Tsukuba, 1-1-1 Tennodai, Tsukuba 305-8573, Japan. kawamoto@golem.kz.tsukuba.ac.jp
authors.forename: Hiroaki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kawamoto
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Taal
authors.forename: Hafid
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Niniss
authors.forename: Tomohiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hayashi
authors.forename: Kiyotaka
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kamibayashi
authors.forename: Kiyoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Eguchi
authors.forename: Yoshiyuki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sankai
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001186:Artificial Limbs; D001915:Braces; D004576:Electromyography; D006429:Hemiplegia / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D006801:Humans; D007719:Knee Joint / Q000502:physiology*; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000502:physiology*; D011474:Prosthesis Design; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D019415:Torque; D016138:Walking / Q000502:physiology