Researchers have developed a new approach in which robotic exosuit assistance can be calibrated to an individual and adapt to a variety of real-world walking tasks in a matter of seconds. The bioinspired system uses ultrasound measurements of muscle dynamics to develop a personalized and activity-specific assistance profile for users of the exosuit.

This human and task variability is a major challenge in designing wearable robotics to assist or augment walking in real-world conditions. To date, customizing wearable robotic assistance to an individual’s walking requires hours of manual or automatic tuning — a tedious task for healthy individuals and often impossible for older adults or clinical patients.

Now, researchers from the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a new approach in which robotic exosuit assistance can be calibrated to an individual and adapt to a variety of real-world walking tasks in a matter of seconds. The bioinspired system uses ultrasound measurements of muscle dynamics to develop a personalized and activity-specific assistance profile for users of the exosuit.

«Our muscle-based approach enables relatively rapid generation of individualized assistance profiles that provide real benefit to the person walking,» said Robert D. Howe, the Abbott and James Lawrence Professor of Engineering, and co-author of the paper.

The research is published in Science Robotics.

Previous bioinspired attempts at developing individualized assistance profiles for robotic exosuits focused on the dynamic movements of the limbs of the wearer. The SEAS researchers took a different approach. The research was a collaboration between Howe’s Harvard Biorobotics Laboratory, which has extensive experience in ultrasound imaging and real-time image processing, and the Harvard Biodesign Lab, run by Conor J. Walsh, the Paul A. Maeder Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at SEAS, which develops soft wearable robots for augmenting and restoring human performance.

Story Source: Materials provided by Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Original written by Leah Burrows. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.