University of Twente Student Theses

Login

The effect of perturbing the angular momentum during walking on the balance strategy

Ambrosius, J.I. (2021) The effect of perturbing the angular momentum during walking on the balance strategy.

[img] PDF
1MB
Abstract:In the development of exoskeletons, balance control during walking is an important factor. Humans solve disbalance due to external perturbations during walking using the hip, ankle and/or stepping strategy. Although, no studies have been performed analyzing the used balance strategies after perturbing solely the angular momentum. This study performed experiments with 10 subjects. Each subject walked on a treadmill (with normal and slow (typical exoskeleton) walking speed) and received perturbations in the anterior and posterior (AP) direction on the upper body and simultaneously in opposite direction on the pelvis at toe-off right (TOR). Motion and force plate data were obtained to investigate the balance recovery strategy. The combination of the two perturbations resulted in a minimal change in the linear momentum and an affected angular momentum. We analysed the balance strategy in the first half gait cycle after perturbation. We looked into the moment arm which is calculated using the GRF and CoP-CoM distance. We found that the moment arm did not absolute linearly increase after increasing forward or backward perturbations. However, the GRF in AP direction did show at the end of the perturbation a significant effect after increasing forward (p<0.001) and backward (p=0.002) perturbation magnitudes, during both walking speeds. This resulted in a response to the affected angular momentum during the perturbation, by creating an angular momentum in opposite direction. Finally, CoP-CoM distance in AP direction was minimally affected due to the minimal affected linear momentum. The analysed balance strategies may contribute to a better human-like controller for the exoskeleton.
Item Type:Essay (Master)
Faculty:ET: Engineering Technology
Subject:44 medicine, 52 mechanical engineering
Programme:Biomedical Engineering MSc (66226)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/88956
Export this item as:BibTeX
EndNote
HTML Citation
Reference Manager

 

Repository Staff Only: item control page