Deep Learning Models for Stable Gait Prediction Applied to Exoskeleton Reference Trajectories for Children With Cerebral Palsy

Gait trajectory prediction models have several applications in exoskeleton control; they can be used as feed-forward input to low-level controllers and to generate reference/target trajectories for position-controlled exoskeletons. In our study, we implement four deep learning models (LSTM, FCN, CNN and Transformer) that perform one-step-ahead gait trajectory prediction after training on gait patterns of typically developing children. We propose a methodology that optimises for stability in long-term forecasts, and evaluate the performance of the models on typically developing (TD) and Cerebral Palsy (CP) gait during recursive prediction of 200 time-steps in the future (which may lead to propagation of errors) and in the presence of varying levels of Gaussian noise (1%-5%). Results on TD gait show that the FCN and Transformer, with mean absolute errors (MAEs) for one-step-ahead predictions between 1.17°−1.63°, are the most suitable for the intended application. We also proposed an approach for generating adaptive trajectories that can be used as reference trajectories for position-controlled exoskeletons. Gait patterns from children with Cerebral Palsy were fed into gait trajectory prediction models trained on typically developing gait only, to generate corrective patterns. Preliminary results show that the gait patterns of typically developing children were introduced onto the generated trajectories.