Pneumatic interactive gait rehabilitation orthosis: design and preliminary testing

Motor rehabilitation techniques based on passive movement of the lower limbs have been developed over the past 15 years. Gait training automation is the latest innovation in these techniques. This paper describes the design and development of a pneumatic interactive gait rehabilitation orthosis (PIGRO), as well as the first experimental results obtained with healthy subjects. PIGRO consists of a modular and size-adaptable exoskeleton, pneumatic actuation systems for the six actuated degrees of freedom (DoF), and a control unit. The foot orthosis and ankle actuation can be removed and/or replaced with orthopaedic shoes so as to permit gait rehabilitation while advancing between parallel bars with ground contact and partial body weight support (i.e. not walking in place). Control logic provides closed-loop position control independently on each joint, with position feedback for each joint in real time. Imposed curves are physiological joint angles: it is also possible to choose between activating one or both legs and to modify curves to obtain different gait patterns if required. The paper concludes with a presentation of experimental results for the device's performance.