A Model-Based Analysis of the Effect of Repeated Unilateral Low Stiffness Perturbations on Human Gait: Toward Robot-Assisted Rehabilitation

Human gait is quite complex, especially when considering the irregular and uncertain environments that humans are able to walk in. While unperturbed gait in a controlled environment is understood to a large degree, gait in more unique environments, such as asymmetric compliant terrain, is not understood to the same degree. In this study, we build upon a neuromuscular gait model and extend it to allow for walking on unilaterally compliant (soft) surfaces. This model is then compared to and verified by experimental human data. The model can successfully walk with step length trends similar to human data. Additionally, the model shows similar behaviors with respect to kinematics and muscle activity. We believe this work contributes significantly to a better understanding of the control of human gait and could lead to model-informed, patient-specific rehabilitation strategies that can advance the field of rehabilitation robotics, as well as the development of bio-inspired controllers for bipedal robots that would be able to traverse through dynamic and complaint terrains.