329 results about "Gait cycle" patented technology

A method of matching a pose of a synthesised representation of a human or animal body to a captured image of that human or animal body is provided, which can be used to generate a graphical model of the body when disposed on a plane, such as a synthesised model of a football player on a field of play. The method includes receiving the captured image data, determining from the captured image data a plurality of limb position estimates, each position estimate corresponding to an amount by which limbs of the body are separated with respect to each other and deriving from the plurality of limb positions an estimated gait phase of the body. The estimated gait phase is then applied to a basis gait model in order to provide an estimated pose of the body, the basis gait model comprising data which defines a displacement of the limbs or parts thereof with respect to a gait cycle period. The estimated pose is then matched to that of the synthesised representation of the body.

An article of footwear includes a sole having a forefoot portion, a heel portion and an outsole having a bottom surface including a primary ground contacting surface. The bottom surface of the outsole includes a forefoot bulge and a heel bulge which provide the footwear with controlled instability for providing dynamic conditioning of the wearer's muscles during the gait cycle.

A method for controlling footwear, comprising cushioning a transient force during use of the footwear at a first period of a gait cycle, storing energy from said cushioning, and releasing the stored energy during use of the footwear at a second period of the gait cycle, and after said transient force has subsided. The control can be electronic, mechanical or hydraulic, and is preferably dependent on a sensed gait cycle phase. The control may be adaptive to the user or the use of the footwear. The stored energy can be used to assist in locomotion, to generate electrical energy, to drive a heat pump, or simply dissipated.

A motion control system includes an actuator having an actuation member, the actuation member having a proximal end attached to the actuator on a first side of a joint and a distal end attached to an anchor element attachment point on a second side of the joint. A first sensor is configured to output signals defining a gait cycle and a second sensor is configured to output signals representing a tensile force in the at least one actuation member. A controller receives the output signals from the sensors and actuates the actuator, during a first portion of the gait cycle, to apply a force greater than a predetermined threshold tensile force to the anchor element attachment point via the actuation member to generate a beneficial moment about the joint and to automatically actuate the actuator.

A sole for an article of footwear includes: an upper sole portion; and a pod assembly having a plurality of pods fluidly connected in series disposed below the upper sole portion, wherein the pod assembly extends from a lateral heel portion of the sole to a medial forefoot portion of the sole such that the plurality of pods compress substantially in sequence through a gait cycle of a wearer.

A footwear construction including a sole and an adjustable heel element selectively rotatable about an axis of rotation to configure the heel element in a fitness mode or a stability mode. The heel element can include a ground contacting surface having a first performance contour and a second, different performance contour. In the fitness mode, the first performance contour is positioned rearward of the second performance contour to provide a rolling/rocking motion when the heel region of the footwear engages a walking surface in a gait cycle. In the stability mode, the second performance contour is positioned rearward of the first performance contour to provide a stable impact when the heel region engages a walking surface. The footwear can include an actuator to enable the heel element to rotate and locking elements to hold the heel element in a fixed rotational position. A related method of use also is provided.

A device for treating a patient using sensory substitution includes a wearable article in which are disposed one or more sensors for detecting the phase of the gait cycle of the patient, a controller for receiving signals from the sensors indicative of the phase of the gait, and one more stimulators for stimulating the patient based on signals from the controller that are issued in response to the sensor signals.

The invention relates to a system and a method for assessment of walking and miming gait in human. The method is preferably based on the fusion of a portable device featuring inertial sensors and several new dedicated signal processing algorithms: the detection of specific temporal events and parameters, 5 optimized fusion and de-drifted integration of inertial signals, automatic and online virtual alignment of sensors module, 3D foot kinematics estimation, a kinematic model for automatic online heel and toe position estimation, and finally the extraction of relevant and clinically meaning-full outcome parameters. Advantageously including at least one wireless inertial module attached to foot, the system provides common spatio-temporal parameters (gait cycle time, stride length, and stride velocity), with the 10 advantage of being able to work in unconstrained condition such as during turning or running. It furthermore may provide original parameters for each gait cycle, both temporal (load, foot-flat and push duration) and spatial (foot clearance and turning angle), and their inter-cycles variability. The system and method according to the invention allows the assessment of various aspects of gait which have shown recently to be of premium importance in research and clinical field, including foot clearance, 15 turns, gait initiation and termination, running, or gait variability. The system may be light weight, easy to wear and use, and suitable for any application requiring objective and quantitative evaluation of gait without heavy laboratory settings.

Abstract of the Disclosure

A system and method associated with the movement of a limb. In one example, the system, such as a prosthetic or orthotic system, includes an actuator that actively controls, or adjusts, the angle between a foot unit and a lower limb member. The actuator preferably selectively locks during a desired phase in a gait cycle of the limb and minimizes friction against a rotor of the actuator. A processing module may control movement of the actuator based on data obtained from a sensor module. For instance, sensing module data may include information relating to the gait of a user and may be used to adjust the foot unit to substantially mimic the movement of a natural, healthy ankle. The system may further accommodate, for example, level ground walking, traveling up/down stairs, traveling up/down sloped surfaces, and various other user movements. In addition, the processing module may receive user input or display output signals through an external interface. For example, the processing module may receive a heel height input from the user.

The invention provides a lower limb power-assisted exoskeleton robot gait pattern identification method and system. The method comprises the steps that a pressure sensing device embedded into a shoe sole of a lower limb power-assisted exoskeleton robot is used for detecting shoe sole pressure information of a wearer, the obtained shoe sole pressure information is compared and matched with walking modes in a human body gait database, a walking mode is obtained through judgment, movement phases in a gait period are identified, and a movement phase is obtained through judgment; data are processed and analyzed, results obtained after identification and matching are transmitted to a lower limb power-assisted exoskeleton robot control system to be used as a control basis. The walking mode and the detailed movement phase in each gait period of the lower limb power-assisted exoskeleton wearer provide the abundant decision basis for control over the lower limb power-assisted exoskeleton. The lower limb power-assisted exoskeleton robot gait pattern identification method and system not only can provide movement information of the wearer for the lower limb power-assisted exoskeleton, but also can be widely applied to human body gait identification.

A one-piece molded orthotic insert having a shape for controlling and directing the motions of the foot. The insert has a unitary body that is formed of a rigid, resiliently flexible, substantially noncompressible material, so that the insert will flex with the shoe but will not compress or deform, so that a correct shape is maintained through the gait cycle. The insert includes a raised arch portion that is supported by a plurality of underlying, vertical ribs. The ribs are spaced apart and free from connection with one another, so that the lower edges of the ribs are able to spread as the insert flexes along its lengthwise axis, so that the insert flexes generally uniformly when walking and without distortion of its shape. The layer of material overlying the ribs has a thickness generally similar to that in the reset of the body, and the ribs also have a generally similar thickness, facilitating manufacture by injection molding. A depending ridge extends around the lower surface of the insert for pressing into an insole so as to stabilize the insert against sliding or shifting in the shoe. The present invention provides many of the advantages of a custom orthotic using a more economical insert, and due to its thin vertical height it is especially suited for use with dress shoes.

Knee adduction moment of an untethered human during gait is modulated by determining at least one feature associated with instantaneous knee adduction moment of the untethered human during a gait cycle. Feedback to be transmitted to the human is, optionally, derived from the feature, such as by comparing the at least one feature to a value, such as a target value. The feature, or feedback derived from the feature, is transmitted to the human for response by the human, thereby modulating knee adduction moment of the untethered human during the gait.

A combined active and passive leg prosthesis system is disclosed, and a method of performing a gait cycle by a leg prosthesis system is disclosed, for replacing a missing lower extremity of an individual to perform a gait cycle by the leg prosthesis system and/or the method. In at least one embodiment, the leg prosthesis system includes at least one movable joint, and a disconnectable active drive unit to drive the movable joint and a passive brake unit to brake the movable joint when the drive unit is disconnected.

The invention discloses a gait feature extraction method and a pedestrian identity recognition method based on gait features, and the method comprises the following steps: A, obtaining a region wherea pedestrian is located as a region of interest for each frame of gait image in a gait image sequence; B, segmenting a pedestrian target in the region of interest; C, acquiring joint point position information of the pedestrian target in each frame of gait image; D, based on joint point position information of the pedestrian target in each frame of gait image of the gait image sequence, carrying out gait period detection; and E, synthesizing a gait energy image corresponding to the gait image sequence according to the detected gait period, and taking the gait energy image as gait characteristics; based on the extracted gait characteristics, judging or identifying the pedestrian target by using a judgment network and a comparison network. According to the method, the problem of insufficientsample size in small sample classification in the field of gait recognition is well solved, and the algorithm is good in real-time performance.

A power-typed walking method for a biped robot belongs to the technical field of robot walking control. The method is characterized in that the robot realizes fully power-typed walking similar to passive walking by rapidly swinging two legs and controlling landing collision of the swinging legs in a gait cycle T which is more than 0.2s and less than 0.5s, the robot creates a virtual slope by bending the knee joint of a swinging leg and supplements energy by straitening the knee joint of a supporting leg, each gait of the gait cycle is determined by three key frames and described by four parameters, a first derivative continuous smooth curve connects the key frames. In the experiment, single gait of the robot reaches a relative walking speed of 4.48 leg lengths per second, which improves by 29 percent compared with the record created by RunBot; moreover, a plurality of gaits of the robot realizes continuous variable speed walking from 1.24 leg lengths per second to 3.88 leg lengths per second.

The invention relates to a Fourier descriptor and gait energy image fusion feature-based gait identification method. The method comprises the steps of performing graying preprocessing on a single frame of image, updating a background in real time by using a Gaussian mixture model, and obtaining a foreground through a background subtraction method; performing binarization and morphological processing on each frame, obtaining a minimum enclosing rectangle of a moving human body, performing normalization to a same height, and obtaining a gait cycle and key 5 frames according to cyclic variation of a height-width ratio of the minimum enclosing rectangle; extracting low-frequency parts of Fourier descriptors of the key 5 frames to serve as features I; centralizing all frames in the cycle to obtain a gait energy image, and performing dimension reduction through principal component analysis to serve as features II; and fusing the features I and II and performing identification by adopting a support vector machine. According to the method, the judgment whether a current human behavior is abnormal or not can be realized; the background is accurately modeled by using the Gaussian mixture model, and relatively good real-time property is achieved; and the used fused feature has strong representability and robustness, so that the abnormal gait identification rate can be effectively increased.

Disclosed is a gait toe-off promoting device or a device configured to promote toe-off during gait comprising: (a) a first sensor located proximate the ball of a foot of an individual and configured to sense the force acting on the ball of the foot during a gait cycle and to provide a signal corresponding to the force; (b) a second sensor located proximate a pressure receiving surface of a toe of the foot of the individual and configured to measure the force acting on the toe of the foot during the gait cycle and to provide a signal corresponding to the force; (c) a control center configured to process the signals, as received from the first and second sensors, to obtain respective first and second measured values, wherein the control center is also configured to compare the first and second measured values to at least one pre-determined value programmed and stored within the control center; and (d) a feedback mechanism operably connected to and controlled by the control center and configured to notify the individual of improper toe-off during the gait cycle, wherein the feedback mechanism is activated as directed by the control center upon an unacceptable comparison of the measured values with the pre-determined value(s), thus making the individual aware of the need to correct future gait cycles.

The invention discloses a wearable type knee joint power-assisted robot. The wearable type knee joint power-assisted robot comprises a control system part (1), flexible execution mechanisms (2 and 3), foot sole thin film pressure sensor groups (4 and 5), and the like. The wearable type knee joint power-assisted robot has the advantage that a miniature air pump is used as a pneumatic power source, the flexible execution mechanisms (2 and 3) acting on knee joints adopt the air bag boosting and torsion spring energy accumulation combined type flexible action method, the gait parameters are collected and fed back in real time by the foot sole thin film pressure sensor groups (4 and 5), the flexible execution mechanisms (2 and 3) are controlled in real time by the control system part (1) of the knee joint power-assisted robot, and the flexible torque which assists the bending and extension of the knee joints is provided according to the gait cycle in the people walking process, so that the purpose of flexible walking assisting is realized for persons with degraded lower limb exercise capacity or without lower limb exercise capacity.

The invention relates to a gait classification method based on multi-sensor information fusion. The gait classification method includes the following steps that (1), plantar pressure information and ankle angle information in the walking process of multiple patients are collected; (2) according to the obtained plantar pressure information, gait stages of the patients are analyzed, the gait stages are divided into the stages of touching the ground with the feet and the stages of swinging the legs, and one gait cycle includes one stage of touching the ground with one foot and one stage of swinging the leg of the same foot of each patient; (3) a characteristic value of each gait cycle is set, so that gait characteristics of all the patients in the walking process are represented; (4), gait cluster analysis is performed on all the characteristic values of all the gait cycles of all the patients through a spectral clustering algorithm, so that the patients with the different gait characteristics are divided into different classifications. The patients are objectively classified, so that reference is provided for rehabilitation training and treatment of the patients, and a doctor can adopt different treatment modes and training intensities for the patients of the different classifications conveniently. The gait classification method can be widely used in the fields of gait analysis and medical rehabilitation.

An energy-storing prosthetic knee includes an upper leg structure and a lower leg structure hingedly connected to the upper leg structure. The lower and upper leg structures move pivotally relative to one another. A fluid actuator is operatively connected to the upper and lower leg structures such that relative pivotal movement of the upper and lower leg structures causes a fluid to flow in a predetermined manner within the fluid actuator. At least two controllable variable fluid flow resisting devices, an accumulator, and a control system are also provided. The control system is actuable to cause storage of the fluid energy for a predetermined length of time and release of the fluid energy at a predetermined time during the gait cycle. Both the storage and release of the fluid energy are variable by action of the control system without physical modification of other components of the prosthetic knee.

The present invention discloses an ankle foot orthosis device that is adjustable to a patient's drop foot. The device may include, inter alia, a foot-support that is sized to fit into a corresponding patient's footwear; an elongate member that is mechanically coupled to the foot-support; and a lower leg holder that is coupled to the elongate member. The lower portion of the elongate member may extend from the foot-support's heel portion upwards and rearwards towards a corresponding lower leg's calf and may further extend forwardly towards the corresponding lower leg's shin. Forward tilting of the lower leg in the gait cycle causes the elongate member to bend forward, which in turn causes the development of potential energy in the device that may be released during the gait cycle's toe-off and swing phase, thereby compensating for the energy lost in the drop foot.