Soft artificial tactile sensors for the measurement of human-robot interaction in the rehabilitation of the lower limb.

De Rossi, Stefano Marco Maria;Vitiello, Nicola;Lenzi, Tommaso;Ronsse, Renaud;Carrozza, Maria Chiara;et.al.
(2010) Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2010 Annual International Conference of the IEEE — Location: Buenos Aires

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Authors
  • De Rossi, Stefano Marco Maria
    Author
  • Vitiello, Nicola
    Author
  • Lenzi, Tommaso
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  • Ronsse, Renaudorcid-logoUCLouvain
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  • Carrozza, Maria Chiara
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Abstract
A new and alternative method to measure the interaction force between the user and a lower-limb gait rehabilitation exoskeleton is presented. Instead of using a load cell to measure the resulting interaction force, we propose a distributed measure of the normal interaction pressure over the whole contact area between the user and the machine. To obtain this measurement, a soft silicone tactile sensor is inserted between the limb and commonly used connection cuffs. The advantage of this approach is that it allows for a distributed measure of the interaction pressure, which could be useful for rehabilitation therapy assessment purposes, or for control. Moreover, the proposed solution does not change the comfort of the interaction; can be applied to connection cuffs of different shapes and sizes; and can be manufactured at a low cost. Preliminary results during gait assistance tasks show that this approach can precisely detect changes in the pressure distribution during a gait cycle.
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De Rossi, S. M. M., Vitiello, N., Lenzi, T., Ronsse, R., Koopman, B., Persichetti, A., Giovacchini, F., Vecchi, F., Ijspeert, A. J., van der Kooij, H., & Carrozza, M. C. (2010). Soft artificial tactile sensors for the measurement of human-robot interaction in the rehabilitation of the lower limb. Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), 2010 Annual International Conference of the IEEE, 1279-1282.