Collaborative Research: Use of Wearable Sensors to Track Muscle-Tendon Loading during Exosuit Assisted Locomotion

合作研究：使用可穿戴传感器跟踪外装辅助运动期间的肌肉肌腱负荷

• 批准号: 2019580
• 负责人: Conor Walsh
• 金额: $ 30万
• 依托单位: Harvard University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-09-01 至 2023-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2019580&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Use; Wearable; Sensors

Advances in exosuit technologies are enabling the use of powered assistance to enhance walking performance in healthy individuals and assist individuals who exhibit gait pathologies, e.g. individuals with stroke. Unlike rigid exoskeletons, exosuits are lightweight and use soft materials that provide a comfortable and unobtrusive fit with the body. A pack worn at the waist uses battery-powered motors to generate forces that are transmitted to the ankle and hip. In spite of demonstrated success in decreasing the energy needed to walk, it remains challenging to tune exosuit assistance patterns for individual users. Thus, the long-term goal of this work is to enable individualized assistance that can adapt in real time to a user’s unique gait patterns and to the environment. To do this, novel sensors, termed shear wave tensiometers, will be used to track adaptations in knee and ankle muscle loading that arise when assistance is provided by a powered ankle exosuit. Studies will be performed to determine how different exosuit assistance control patterns modulate internal muscle loading under varied walking conditions, including with and without exosuit assistance, with and without carrying a load (backpack) and walking in an outdoor/real-world environment (declines, inclines and variable walking speeds.) Theses studies will enhance the fundamental understanding of neuromuscular responses to exosuit assistance and thus enable human-in-the-loop implementations that adapt assistance based on the needs of an individual. Educational and outreach impact will be achieved by using fundamentals underlying the robotic, biomechanics and sensor technologies developed in this project as a platform for engaging K-12 students in STEM. Simplified versions of the exosuits and sensors will be incorporated into the annual engineering outreach event at the University of Wisconsin-Madison which reaches thousands of K-12 students and their teachers every year. Also, the Soft Robotics Toolkit hosted by Harvard will be used to create engaging content that describes human-machine interaction, biomechanics, physiology and gait.The goal of this project is to use novel tissue load sensors, termed shear wave tensiometers, to investigate biomechanical adaptations to exosuit assistance within and beyond the laboratory environment. Though current exosuit technologies have been shown to lower the metabolic cost of walking in healthy subjects and improve propulsion, ground clearance, and symmetry in stroke survivors, the extent of these benefits varies widely across subjects. The project builds on a new collaboration between the lab that invented the tensiometer method to directly gauge tendon loading by measuring the propagation speed of shear waves along the tendon’s axis (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and a lab that is recognized for leadership in developing the next generation of soft exosuits (Harvard.) The Research Plan is organized under three aims, with each aim being evaluated in 10 human subjects. The FIRST Aim is to develop and incorporate a wearable shear wave tensiometer into an ankle exosuit to continuously monitor Achilles tendon loading during prolonged treadmill walking trials. Ankle joint torque determined from tensiometer measurements will be compared to measurements based on motion capture. The result of this aim will be a validated wearable sensor for quantifying changes in tendon tissue loading induced by exosuit assistance. The SECOND Aim is to evaluate relationship between ankle exosuit assistance magnitude and change in muscle-tendon loading during walking with and without added mass. Results of this aim will provide novel insights into the relationship between exosuit assistance and biological soft tissue loads, with expectations that the tested variables (exosuit force, exosuit timing, and added mass) will have various effects on the user’s muscle-tendon load. The THIRD Aim is to evaluate the effect of ankle exosuit assistance on muscle-tendon loading while walking in an outdoor circuit that includes inclines, declines, comfortable speed and fast walking. Measurements include tendon loading with the mobile tensiometer, muscle kinematics with ultrasound, and biomechanics and suit data with suit IMUs and load cells. Results of this aim are expected to demonstrate that, similar to how a motion capture and force plate setup in a lab environment allows for estimating joint moments, the suit sensors and tensiometer will allow for evaluating joint kinematics and tendon kinetics in outdoor environments. Success of the project is expected to lead to a new design of exosuits with integrated tensiometer sensors, produce new understanding of biomechanics with exosuits, and potentially inform optimization of personalized wearable exoskeletons for clinical and/or aged populations.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

外部技术的进步正在实现使用动力援助，以提高健康个体的步行表现，并帮助暴露步态病理学的个体，例如中风的人。与刚性外部不同的是轻量级，并使用柔软的材料，可提供舒适且与人体的舒适性拟合度。腰部穿着的包装使用电池供电的电动机产生传递到脚踝和臀部的力。尽管在减少步行所需的能量方面取得了成功，但为个别用户调整外套件援助模式仍然存在挑战。这是这项工作的长期目标是实现个性化的援助，可以实时适应用户独特的相遇模式和环境。为此，新型传感器（称为剪切波张力仪）将用于跟踪膝盖和脚踝肌肉负荷的适应性，这些适应在由动力的脚踝外部提供时会出现。将进行研究，以确定不同的外部辅助控制模式如何调节内部肌肉在不同的步行条件下（包括和没有外部援助的情况）调节内部肌肉负荷，在有和不承担负载（背包）并在户外/现实世界中行走（背包）并在户外/现实世界中行走（倾斜度，倾斜度和可变速度）。根据个人的需求调整援助。通过使用该项目中开发的机器人，生物力学和传感器技术的基本原理作为使K-12学生参与STEM的平台，将实现教育和外展影响。在威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校举行的年度工程外展活动中，简化版本的外部和传感器将纳入每年将达到数千名K-12学生及其老师的年度工程外展活动。此外，哈佛大学托管的软机器人工具包将用于创建引人入胜的内容，以描述人机相互作用，生物力学，生理学和步态。该项目的目的是使用新型的组织负载传感器，称为剪切波张力仪，以调查生物力学适应以调查实验室内外的生物力学适应。尽管当前的外部技术已被证明可以降低健康受试者行走的代谢成本，并改善中风生存中的推进，地面间隙和对称性，但这些好处的程度在各受试者之间差异很大。该项目建立在实验室之间的新合作基础上，该合作是通过测量沿肌腱轴（威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校）的剪切波的传播速度来直接计量肌腱载荷的，该实验室被认可在下一代软外食（Harvard）中的领导才能，该计划在每个人的范围内都在三个主题中进行评估。第一个目的是将可穿戴的剪切波张力仪开发到脚踝外套件中，以在长时间的跑步机步行试验期间继续监测跟腱载荷。将根据运动捕获的测量值将根据张力计测量确定的踝关节扭矩进行比较。该目标的结果将是经过验证的可穿戴传感器，用于量化因外部辅助引起的肌腱组织负荷的变化。第二个目的是评估踝关节外的辅助幅度与行走和不增加质量的肌肉刺激载荷的变化之间的关系。该目标的结果将提供有关外可充血辅助与生物软组织负荷之间关系的新颖见解，并期望经过测试的变量（外部力，外部时间和增加的质量）会对用户的肌肉倾斜负荷产生各种影响。第三个目的是评估踝关节外部援助对肌肉刺激装载的影响，同时在包括斜坡，下降，舒适的速度和快速步行的室外电路中行走。测量值包括用移动张力仪加载肌腱，超声波和生物力学的肌肉运动学以及与西装IMU和负载电池一起使用的数据。预计该目标的结果将证明，类似于实验室环境中运动捕获和力板的设置类似，在室外环境中，西装传感器和张力仪将允许评估关节运动学和肌腱动力学。该项目的成功有望通过集成张力仪传感器进行新的外套装设计，通过外套衣对生物力学产生新的理解，并有可能为临床和/或老年人群的个性化可穿戴外骨骼提供优化。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过评估了基金会的范围，并将其视为支持者的支持者。

项目成果

Modulation of Achilles tendon force with load carriage and exosuit assistance

通过负载运输和外装辅助调节跟腱力

• DOI: 10.1126/scirobotics.abq1514
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Science Robotics
• 影响因子: 25
• 作者: Schmitz, Dylan G.;Nuckols, Richard W.;Lee, Sangjun;Akbas, Tunc;Swaminathan, Krithika;Walsh, Conor J.;Thelen, Darryl G.
• 通讯作者: Thelen, Darryl G.