A Digital Twin for Exoskeleton Pilot

Overview

Although exoskeletons have been studied for many years, actual products have been sold on the market. However, there are still many limitations in the practical application of exoskeletons, and the control logic is also limited to the level of motor torque compensation, and lacks the consideration of overall motion stability (such as whether the wearer (driving, pilot) will fall). The purpose of this project is to establish a digital twin of this driving, which will perform the driving action in parallel, and calculate in parallel in the virtual environment the torque required to provide each joint torque to maintain stable walking without falling, and this torque can be used as a monitoring basis for the auxiliary torque of each axis for the exoskeleton. When the exoskeleton's movements are out of range of a stable gait, the controller can warn and attenuate the output of auxiliary forces, and on the other hand, it has the opportunity to analyze whether the intention of driving is to switch the movement mode - such as stopping, or sitting, squatting, etc.

Detailed description

This project is expected to use different machine learning models to make accurate predictions of human intent when healthy people drive different actions or action transitions of common human actions. Drivers will wear sensors such as inertial measurement unit (IMU) and electromyography (EMG) in the lower limbs to measure body signals of participants during actions in a non-invasive way, and let the system calculate the joint angle, angular velocity and angular acceleration of each joint of the driving lower limb related human signals.

Interventions

• Other A Digital Twin for Exoskeleton Pilot
  The purpose of this project is to establish a digital twin of this driving, which will perform the driving action in parallel, and calculate in parallel in the virtual environment the torque required to provide each joint torque to maintain stable walking without falling, and this torque can be used as a monitoring basis for the auxiliary torque of each axis for the exoskeleton. When the exoskeleton's movements are out of range of a stable gait, the controller can warn and attenuate the output o

Primary outcome measures

• The angles of the subject's joints. [Time frame: 3 years]
• The activities of muscles state of human movement. [Time frame: 3 years]
• The comprehensive intention of the subjects. [Time frame: 3 years]

Eligibility criteria

Inclusion criteria

• Can stand independently and walk for more than 5 minutes.
• According to age, it can be divided into: elderly groups (aged between 50\~80 years old); Young people (aged 18\~50 years).

Exclusion criteria

• Have current or previous neurological diseases of the lower extremities, such as: acute neuritis, stroke, Parkinson's disease.
• Have current or previous orthopedic diseases of the lower extremities, such as: knee replacement, rheumatoid arthritis, or sports injuries and other symptoms.

Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.

Healthy volunteers: Yes

Study design

Allocation

N/A

Model

Single group

Masking

Open label

Primary purpose

Basic science

Study locations

Taiwan · 1 center

• National Taiwan University Hospital — Taipei,Taiwan

Identifiers

NCT: NCT05650255 · 202209051RINB

Primary sources (government registries)

• ClinicalTrials.gov (US NIH)

View this study on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗