Hybrid brain/muscle signals powered

wearable walking exoskeleton enhancing

motor ability in climbing stairs activity

Zhijun Li, Yuxia Yuan, Ling Luo, Wenbin Su, Kuankuan Zhao, Cuichao
Xu, Junliang Huang and Ming Pi
IEEE Transactions on Medical Robotics and Bionics– 2019

Neurorobotics Research Group, Air University 1

Introduction
• A hybrid control that combines a brain-computer interface (BCI) based on
motor imagery (MI) with surface electromyogram (EMG) signals has been
developed.
• According to different tasks, the raw EEG signals of MI are obtained and
translated to different motion commands meanwhile the strength of EMG
signals obtained from upper forearm of operator is used to determine the
parameters of stairs.
• The gait trajectories of four joints for up stairs and down stairs can be
designed by solving the inverse kinematics equation.

Neurorobotics Research Group, Air University 2

Hybrid Control System
• The hybrid EEG/EMG-based system is composed of a central industrial
computer with NeuroScan-NuAmps 40 channels digital EEG recording
device and Delsys 2 channels EMG recording device, and a powered
exoskeleton robot (WalkON Suit).
• The EMG signals of human upper forearms are obtained via 2 channels and
the intensity of the processed EMG signal is divided into 7 grades according
to the maximum and minimum values. Then, the EEG and EMG recognized
results are sent to exoskeleton robot via wireless networks. The recognized
results of EEG are used to determine the movement of left or right leg, as
for the 2 channels EMG signals, one channel signal controls the width of
stairs and another adjusts the height of stairs.

Neurorobotics Research Group, Air University 3

Hybrid Control System

4
Hybrid Control System
• The EEG signals of motor imagery are collected and amplified at a
sampling rate of 500Hz by 2 channels of digital EEG recoding system that
are positioned uniformly on the head of each operator.
• In order to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and improve the
accuracy of identification, a 50Hz notch filter and a band-pass filter (5-
30Hz) are applied for the line frequency interface.

5
Experimental Setup
• Three healthy volunteers participated in the experiment, who are required to
drive powered exoskeleton to assist themselves to climb stairs by EEG
signals of motor imagery and EMG signals from upper forearms. During
motor imaginary training, a comfortable chair is provided for the volunteer
in a room, and an arrow pointing left on the screen prompted the subject to
imagine moving the left leg. Each training session lasts for 9s and the first
3s are rest period.

6
Figure: Experiment results of going up stairs for the first type stairs 7
Results
• The ERA of three subjects about two different imagery tasks corresponding
to result (1, -1) is over 80%. In our experiment, the result 1 of EEG
indicates the motion command moving the left leg and the result -1
represents the motion intention moving the right leg.
• EMG signals are divided into seven levels according to the maximum and
minimum values and height of stairs can be computed using:

H = Hmin + L1 × (Hmax - Hmin)/6

Neurorobotics Research Group, Air University 8