Development of a System for Independent Ambulation of Patients with Spinal Cord Injury Using a Dataglove and a Biped Robotic Model

The general focus of the project is the development of a simple, portable and economically accessible device that permits the limited movement of the inferior extremities on patients with damage on the spinal cord in the lumbar region. The present work is limited to the control system. An electronic dataglove is used as input interface. To develop the controller it was developed as output interface a mechanical model of the inferior extremities, instead of medical experimentation on patients. The controller implemented in a DSP uses a neural network to translate input signals to the outputs. The controller by itself is in open loop configuration. The feedback of the overall system is planned to be done by the patiencepsilas own senses. All the compensations as in fatigue (feedback) are performed by the patient.