A Comprehensive Human-body Dynamic Model towards the Development of a Powered Exoskeleton for Paraplegics

Kinematic and dynamic models of a human body are presented. The models intend to represent paraplegics wearing a powered exoskeleton. The proposed exoskeleton fully controls the motion of the hip and knee joints, i.e., each lower extremity contains four actuators, three at the hip joint and one at the knee joint. A spring-loaded ankle-foot orthosis completes the exoskeleton. The kinematic model involves a large number of degrees of freedom, 34-DOF. The dynamic model presents a general formulation that can be implemented for any human task – walking, running, jumping, climbing stairs, etc. Traditional dynamic models simplify the motion of bipeds by considering a limited number of movements contained in the sagittal plane and by focusing on a particular task. A 3D model of a human body has been developed to simulate motion.