Wearable vibrotactile biofeedback to improve human-exoskeleton compliance during assisted gait training

Abstract

Biofeedback may accelerate post-stroke motor recovery during exoskeleton-assisted gait training. A wearable vibrotactile human-robot interaction (HRI)-based biofeedback is proposed to improve human-exoskeleton compliance during gait training assisted by an ankle-foot exoskeleton (AFE). A pre-post study with four healthy subjects was conducted to evaluate biofeedback training’s efficacy. Results show statistically significant improvements (p-value: 4.56e−4–0.03) in HRI torque outcomes and the participants felt motivated about training. Findings suggest that the proposed biofeedback can enhance human-robot compliance.