A Pilot Study on the Feasibility of Hybrid Gait Training with Kinesis Overground Robot for Persons with Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury

Hybrid actuation and control have a considerable potential for walking rehabilitation of neurologically impaired people, but there is a need of novel hybrid control strategies that adequately manage the balance between functional electrical stimulation ( FES) and robotic controllers. A case-study of a hybrid cooperative control strategy for overground gait training with a wearable robotic exoskeleton for persons with incomplete spinal cord injury ( SCI) is presented. The feasibility of the control strategy to overcome muscular stimulation electromechanical delay, deterioration of muscle performance over time, and to balance muscular and robotic actuation cyclic overground walking is tested in one subject with incomplete spinal cord injury ( L4, AIS grade D). The results show that the proposed hybrid cooperative control in Kinesis overground robot is able to autonomously compensate a bilateral pathologic walking pattern and the suitability of Kinesis hybrid gait training robot for conducting clinical experimentation.