Electric stimulation feedback for gait control of walking robot

This paper proposes a finger-mounted walk controller for a complete paraplegic patient wearing a powered exoskeleton. The wearable controller mounted on both hands of the patient compensates impaired efferent and afferent nerves of the patient through healthy index fingers. The user controls his hip joint angle through force sensors of the controller as if he controls a position of his swing leg voluntarily. Simultaneously, he perceives hip joint angles through an electric stimulation device of the controller. This paper introduces a walking robot which simulates the patient body with lofstrand crutches on his arms for preliminary experiments before a clinical trial. The finger-mounted walk controller is used to control a position of the robot's swing leg. A 5-meter walk experiment is conducted to evaluate feasibility of the controller. We confirmed that the user controlled a stride based only on the electric stimulation feedback and no visual feedback, and that the robot finished walking 5-meter in three minutes.