Controlling exoskeletons with EMG signals and a biomechanical body model

This work presents a control system for exoskeletons that utilizes electrical signals from the muscles as the main means of information transportation between the human operator and the exoskeleton. Those signals are picked up from the skin on top of selected muscles and reflect the activation of the observed muscle. They are evaluated by a sophisticated but simplified biomechanical model of the human body to derive the desired action of the operator. A support action is computed in accordance to the desired action and is executed by the exoskeleton. The biomechanical model fuses results from different biomechanical and biomedical research groups and performs a sensible simplification considering the intended application. It contains parameters which reflect properties of the human operator and his or her current body state. A calibration algorithm for those parameters is presented which relies exclusively on sensors mounted on the exoskeleton, and provides deep inside into the mechanisms of the model. An exoskeleton for the knee joint support was designed and constructed to verify the model and investigate the interaction between the human operator and the machine in experiments with force support during everyday movements. Those results are also presented here.