Passive Swing Assistive Planar External Orthosisa

Orthoses are devices used for rehabilitation of patients having muscle weakness at their limbs. People with motor-incomplete motion can train their weak limbs by using appropriate orthoses to improve their muscle activity. In this paper, we present a lower leg planar external passive orthosis for swing phase of gait to assist the patients with lower leg impairments. This orthosis attaches to the shank of the leg and its other end is connected to a walking frame. In this work, we optimize the physical parameters of external orthosis together with parameters of two torsional springs located at its joints or two linear springs connected to its links, to obtain a desired swing motion of the leg without existence of any actuators or making any effort by the user. Applying the dynamics and kinematic constraints of closed loop system comprising the human leg and the external orthosis, optimization process is done by using Genetic Algorithm (GA) through computer simulation. The results show that the wing otion obtained by simulation is very close to the desired swing motion.

کلیدواژه ها:

human leg ، external orthosis ، optimization ، genetic algorithm ، swing