A Novel Personalized Strategy for Hip Joint Flexion Assistance Based on Human Physiological State

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Rehabilitation Technology
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Existing soft exosuits lack personalized assistance, leading to suboptimal user experience.
• Current human-in-the-loop (HIL) systems often overlook real-time physiological state monitoring for dynamic adjustments.
• There's a need for intelligent control strategies that adapt exosuit assistance to individual needs during locomotion.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a novel personalized power-assist system for soft exosuits.
• To optimize hip joint assistance by integrating real-time physiological and motion feedback.
• To investigate the efficacy of a Physiological State Monitoring Control (PSMC) system in reducing metabolic expenditure.

Main Methods:

• Developed a soft exosuit with a personalized power-assist system.
• Integrated real-time monitoring of heart rate (HR), blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), and inertial measurement unit (IMU) data.
• Implemented a Physiological State Monitoring Control (PSMC) system to adjust hip flexion assistance based on feedback.

Main Results:

• The PSMC-based soft exosuit reduced metabolic expenditure by 7.81% during treadmill walking at 3.5 km/h.
• Metabolic consumption decreased by 5.1%, 5.8%, and 8.2% at speeds of 2, 4, and 6 km/h, respectively.
• Demonstrated significant reductions in metabolic cost across various walking intensities.

Conclusions:

• The developed personalized soft exosuit effectively reduces metabolic cost during walking.
• Real-time physiological state monitoring and dynamic assistance adjustment are viable strategies for enhancing walking efficiency.
• This approach supports the design of adaptive exosuit systems for improved assistive and rehabilitative applications.