A novel gait-based synthesis procedure for the design of 4-bar exoskeleton with natural trajectories.

Background/Objective: Human walking involves the coordination of brain, nerves, and muscles. A disturbance in their coordination may result in gait disorder. The gait disorder may be treated through manually assisted gait training or with the aid of assistive devices/robotic devices. These robotic devices involve mechanisms which are synthesized using complex conventional procedures. Therefore, in this study, a new gait-based synthesis procedure is proposed, which simplifies the mechanism synthesis and helps to develop a mechanism which can be used in rehabilitation devices, bipeds, etc.

Methods: This article presents a novel procedure for the synthesis of 4-bar linkage using the natural gait trajectories. As opposed to the conventional synthesis procedures, in this procedure, a global reference frame is considered, which allows the use of hip trajectory while moving. Moreover, this method is divided into two stages, and five precision points are considered on the hip trajectory in each stage. In the first stage, the 4-bar linkage is designed, thereafter, the configurations of the linkage for the remaining precision points are determined in the second stage. The proposed synthesis procedure reduces the complexity involved in the synthesis and helps in the simplification of the problem formulation. A two-stage optimization problem is formulated for minimizing the error between the generated and desired hip trajectories. Two nature-inspired algorithms are used for solving the optimization problem. The obtained best results are presented, and the designed linkage is simulated in MATLAB.

Results: The best design of the linkage is obtained using particle swarm optimization. The trajectories generated by the designed linkage using the proposed methodology can accurately track the desired path, which indicates that designed linkage can achieve all the orientations required during walking. The positions of a whole lower limb at all the desired precision points are demonstrated by stick diagram for one gait.

Conclusion: The proposed methodology has reduced the complexity of synthesis procedures and used optimization techniques to obtain a feasible design of the mechanism. The stick diagram of the designed mechanism obtained using the proposed method indicates that the designed mechanism can walk smoothly. Hence, the designed mechanism can be used in the rehabilitation devices. Furthermore, a conceptual design of an exoskeleton knee is also presented.

The Translational Potential of this Article: Many hospitals and individuals have used the immobile and portable rehabilitation devices. These devices involve mechanisms, and the design of mechanism plays a vital role in the functioning of these devices; therefore, we have developed a new synthesis procedure for the design of the mechanism. Besides synthesis procedure, a mechanism is developed that can be used in the rehabilitation devices, bipeds, exoskeletons, etc., to benefit the society.