A powered ankle rehabilitation mechanism for drop foot
                                                     LI Juan, XU Kun, LI Weida, LI Longwei, XIA Ziyu, WAN Huan
                         (Key Laboratory of Robotics and System of Jiangsu Province, Soochow University, Suzhou 215000, China)

Abstract: Aiming at solving the abnormal gait problems of drop foot, such as toe landing and towing, the functional goals of the ankle rehabilitation mechanism were put forward, and a symmetrical, hybrid powered ankle mechanism was designed that could be able to supply positive mechanical power during the swing phase of gait. The mechanism was adopted the method of combination of a pair of compressed springs and a cabledriven actuator. In order to solve the control problem of the mechanism, the normal human gait was studied, and the method of measuring the gait phase of the foot pressure sensor was adopted, and the gait phase detection system was set up, the traditional PID control method was studied, and the control system of the gait detection and the ankle rehabilitation mechanism were designed, and the control system was completeted. Finally, the experiment was carried out. The results indicate that the mechanism is highly feasible,the ideal ankle joint angle curve is compared with the experimental value, and they are basically consistent. It indicates that the mechanism could help the droop foot walk and make the gait approximate to the normal gait.

Key words: drop foot; symmetrical; hybrid powered ankle mechanism; gait detection