<![CDATA[Robot Ankle Foot Orthosis (AFO) has been proven to assist the gait impairment, such as the foot drop. However, development challenge is still remains, such as the trade-off between complexity, functionality and cost. High functionality resulted in high cost, bulky, and complex device. But affordability and simplicity may decrease functionality. Therefore, this research proposed a robot AFO, which has the necessary function of auto dorsi-plantarflexion so it can keep the affordability and simplicity. The robot AFO consists of structure, electronics part and algorithm. The structure is custom made according to the user’s anatomy. A brushless DC (BLDC) motor, Force-Sensing Resistor (FSR) and microcontroller builds the electronic parts. The BLDC motor actuates the flexion, while the FSR detects the gait phase to determine the action. Both are integrated by the microcontroller with the P control algorithm that commands the BLDC motor to generate necessary torque so it rotates in a constant speed. A functionality test has been carried out on the robot AFO, where the robot AFO perform a dorsi-plantarflexion continuously in three conditions, such as no load, 1 Kg load, and foot load. The robot AFO successfully performed a constant velocity rotation in both directions, in all conditions. In the case of 1 Kg load, the maximum angular speed is 0.7 rad/s dorsiflexion and -1.8 rad/s plantarflexion. The torque keeps increasing and decreasing from -0.3 Nm to 4 Nm to keep the angular velocity. The result shows that the robot AFO can perform the necessary function to assist the foot drop training. Functionality test on the gait detection has also been done where it shows that the robot AFO can detect the four gait phases accurately. The robot AFO has been tested and future study should test the robot on a real post-stroke patient to see the effect of the gait control in reality.]]>
Copyrights © 2022
