Contact persons

• Chenglin Lyu, M.Sc.
• Dr.-Ing. Chuong Ngo
• Lukas Bergmann, M.Sc.

Project description

Clinical rehabilitation and postoperative rehabilitation are also critical for patients’ health especially for the elders. The most common impairment is lower limb and upper limb paresis. Functional electrical stimulation (FES), and exoskeleton are regarded as necessary methods to rehabilitate the body motion. However, by implementing these two methods alone cannot achieve a desired goal. One promising way to assist body rehabilitation is hybrid electromechanical system. Therefore, the objective of the project is to develop and evaluate a hybrid robotic system, which combines FES technology, body motion track system and sensors.
By achieving this goal, motion capture system is first used to get the precise trajectory of basic body motion (walking, sit to stand and so on). Exoskeleton with four motors are designed and attached on hips and knees. They mainly keep the body stable and provide torque and support when moving. The FES system, which has four channels, is applied on the tibialis muscle, soleus muscle, gracilis muscle and rectus femoris muscle. Instead of stimulating the muscle itself rather impulse the nerve of the muscle will fully contract the muscles. Furthermore, muscle fatigue and EMG signal are also considered in the rehabilitation process. Combined with neurological methods and sensors, close-loop hybrid exoskeleton could accomplish more advantages than it works alone. This hybrid system can be applied in rehabilitation centre. Further studies and application are underway to evaluate the efficacy and control strategy in a clinical trial.

Student projects

In the exciting rehabilitation robotics and exoskeletons field, we are always happy to have enthusiastic students from electrical engineering or mechanical engineering courses. Methodically, the topics to be addressed are mainly in the following areas:

• Control Theory: Design and validation of different control concepts
• Electronics: Sensory design
• Mechanics: Construction and design

If you are interested in a specific topic and want to realize your own ideas, call or write an email to the supervisor. We are looking forward to hearing from you!