Simulations of Walking with Coupled Exoskeleton Assistance

In this study, we simulated exoskeleton devices that used one optimized control signal to provide torque assistance at multiple lower-limb joints, or “coupled” assistance. We found that coupled multi-joint devices could provide 50% greater metabolic savings than single joint devices. Further, coupled multi-joint devices were able to achieve similar metabolic savings to more complex multi-joint devices that controlled torques at each joint independently. Our results indicate that device designers could simplify multi-joint exoskeleton designs by reducing the number of torque control parameters through coupling, while still maintaining large reductions in metabolic cost. <br/><br/>This project includes the following software/data packages: <br/> <ul> <li> <a href="https://simtk.org/frs?group_id=2111#pack_2263">README </a> : Guide to result files, figure image files, and additional files related to the manuscript included in this distribution. </li> <li> <a href="https://simtk.org/frs?group_id=2111#pack_2241">Experimental data, simulations </a> : Experimental data files used to perform and validate simulations. Main result files from all simulation conditions. </li> <li> <a href="https://simtk.org/frs?group_id=2111#pack_2297">Raw data </a> : Raw walking (and running) data from the Arnold et al. 2013 study. </li> <li> <a href="https://simtk.org/frs?group_id=2111#pack_2262">Additional manuscript files </a> : Additional files related to the manuscript including: figure image files, files from analyses of simulation results, scripts used to perform statistical analysis, and result files from our validation approach. </li> </ul>

在本项研究中，我们模拟了使用单一优化控制信号为多个下肢关节提供扭矩辅助的支架设备，即所谓的“耦合”辅助。研究发现，耦合的多关节设备相较于单关节设备能够实现高达50%的代谢节省。此外，耦合的多关节设备在实现代谢节省方面与独立控制每个关节扭矩的更复杂的多关节设备相当。我们的结果表明，设备设计师可以通过耦合来减少扭矩控制参数的数量，从而简化多关节支架的设计，同时在维持显著的代谢成本降低方面保持优势。本项研究包含以下软件/数据包：

<ul>
<li>README（[链接](https://simtk.org/frs?group_id=2111#pack_2263)）：包含结果文件、图象文件以及与本分布相关的手稿附加文件的指南。</li>
<li>实验数据、模拟（[链接](https://simtk.org/frs?group_id=2111#pack_2241)）：用于执行和验证模拟的实验数据文件。所有模拟条件的主要结果文件。</li>
<li>原始数据（[链接](https://simtk.org/frs?group_id=2111#pack_2297)）：来自 Arnold 等人2013年研究的原始行走（及跑步）数据。</li>
<li>附加手稿文件（[链接](https://simtk.org/frs?group_id=2111#pack_2262)）：与手稿相关的附加文件，包括：图象文件、模拟结果分析文件、执行统计分析所用的脚本，以及我们验证方法的结果文件。</li>
</ul>