The Design of an Intelligent Active Orthosis for Lower Limbs: the Way for Independent Mobility for Paraplegia

Walking is body?s natural means of moving from one location to another. Functional versatility allows the lower limbs to readily accommodate stairs, doorways and obstacles in the path of progression. Therefore, as standing-up and sitting-down are prerequisite for walking and independent mobility they are considered two of the most demanding activities. Despite that, current walking systems do not integrate robust controllers for standing-up and sitting-down. Designing an optimal controller using functional electrical stimulation (FES) and artificial intelligence aiming to achieve near-normal dynamics is important yet many factors including the dynamics nonlinearity and the upper limb force need to be considered. This book, therefore, aims to represent a design of an FES-supported standing-up and sitting-down optimal controller integrated with an intention detection system. The analysis of the book gives an overview about rehabilitation, genetic algorithms, neural networks, fuzzy systems, and wavelet analysis techniques to the readers. It starts from the very basic concepts building its way up to the current techniques used in biological modelling and control systems design.