Lower-Extremity Exoskeleton for Human Spinal Cord Injury: A Comprehensive Review

Tianci WANG; Zaixin SONG; Hao WEN; Chunhua LIU

doi:10.1109/OJIES.2024.3412809

Lower-Extremity Exoskeleton for Human Spinal Cord Injury: A Comprehensive Review

Tianci WANG
, Zaixin SONG
, Hao WEN
, Chunhua LIU^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews › RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

117 Downloads (CityUHK Scholars)

Abstract

Locomotion disorder caused by Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) leads to a considerably decreased quality of people's life. Although there are no known cure methods for SCI, a lower-extremity exoskeleton (LEE) has a perspective to restore the locomotion ability of SCI patients. Statistics show that the number of published articles on LEEs has exponentially increased in the past 20 years; however, no reviews have been conducted to summarize these studies comprehensively. To fill up this open gap, a comprehensive review from engineering to clinical standpoint is carried out, which is based on the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methods, including their structural designs, drive forms, control methods, and clinical assessments. A systematic discussion among them is performed while considering the main scientific and technical aspects. The analysis indicates that the actuator configuration, motor selection, state transition, trajectory tracking, transparency implementation, and clinical factor design in exoskeleton development are full of challenges, which should be investigated in more technical efforts in the future.

© 2024 The Authors.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	575-595
Number of pages	21
Journal	IEEE Open Journal of the Industrial Electronics Society (OJIES)
Volume	5
Online published	11 Jun 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1109/OJIES.2024.3412809
Publication status	Published - 2024

Funding

This work was supported in part by a grant from the Science Technology and Innovation Committee of Shenzhen Municipality, Shenzhen, China, under Project JCYJ20210324134005015; in part by a Collaborative Research Fund (CRF) from the Research Grants Council, Hong Kong, under Project C1052-21GF; and in part by RGC Research Fellow Scheme from Research Grants Council, Hong Kong, under Project RFS2223-1S05.

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This full text is made available under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

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RGC-funded

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@article{5317960d41d64c15b5a255f64ceb5ded,

title = "Lower-Extremity Exoskeleton for Human Spinal Cord Injury: A Comprehensive Review",

abstract = "Locomotion disorder caused by Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) leads to a considerably decreased quality of people's life. Although there are no known cure methods for SCI, a lower-extremity exoskeleton (LEE) has a perspective to restore the locomotion ability of SCI patients. Statistics show that the number of published articles on LEEs has exponentially increased in the past 20 years; however, no reviews have been conducted to summarize these studies comprehensively. To fill up this open gap, a comprehensive review from engineering to clinical standpoint is carried out, which is based on the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methods, including their structural designs, drive forms, control methods, and clinical assessments. A systematic discussion among them is performed while considering the main scientific and technical aspects. The analysis indicates that the actuator configuration, motor selection, state transition, trajectory tracking, transparency implementation, and clinical factor design in exoskeleton development are full of challenges, which should be investigated in more technical efforts in the future. {\textcopyright} 2024 The Authors.",

author = "Tianci WANG and Zaixin SONG and Hao WEN and Chunhua LIU",

year = "2024",

doi = "10.1109/OJIES.2024.3412809",

language = "English",

volume = "5",

pages = "575--595",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Lower-Extremity Exoskeleton for Human Spinal Cord Injury

T2 - A Comprehensive Review

AU - WANG, Tianci

AU - SONG, Zaixin

AU - WEN, Hao

AU - LIU, Chunhua

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - Locomotion disorder caused by Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) leads to a considerably decreased quality of people's life. Although there are no known cure methods for SCI, a lower-extremity exoskeleton (LEE) has a perspective to restore the locomotion ability of SCI patients. Statistics show that the number of published articles on LEEs has exponentially increased in the past 20 years; however, no reviews have been conducted to summarize these studies comprehensively. To fill up this open gap, a comprehensive review from engineering to clinical standpoint is carried out, which is based on the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methods, including their structural designs, drive forms, control methods, and clinical assessments. A systematic discussion among them is performed while considering the main scientific and technical aspects. The analysis indicates that the actuator configuration, motor selection, state transition, trajectory tracking, transparency implementation, and clinical factor design in exoskeleton development are full of challenges, which should be investigated in more technical efforts in the future. © 2024 The Authors.

AB - Locomotion disorder caused by Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) leads to a considerably decreased quality of people's life. Although there are no known cure methods for SCI, a lower-extremity exoskeleton (LEE) has a perspective to restore the locomotion ability of SCI patients. Statistics show that the number of published articles on LEEs has exponentially increased in the past 20 years; however, no reviews have been conducted to summarize these studies comprehensively. To fill up this open gap, a comprehensive review from engineering to clinical standpoint is carried out, which is based on the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) methods, including their structural designs, drive forms, control methods, and clinical assessments. A systematic discussion among them is performed while considering the main scientific and technical aspects. The analysis indicates that the actuator configuration, motor selection, state transition, trajectory tracking, transparency implementation, and clinical factor design in exoskeleton development are full of challenges, which should be investigated in more technical efforts in the future. © 2024 The Authors.

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85196513516

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85196513516#tab=impact

U2 - 10.1109/OJIES.2024.3412809

DO - 10.1109/OJIES.2024.3412809

M3 - RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal

VL - 5

SP - 575

EP - 595

JO - IEEE Open Journal of the Industrial Electronics Society (OJIES)

JF - IEEE Open Journal of the Industrial Electronics Society (OJIES)

ER -

Lower-Extremity Exoskeleton for Human Spinal Cord Injury: A Comprehensive Review

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Lower-Extremity Exoskeleton for Human Spinal Cord Injury: A Comprehensive Review

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Publisher's Copyright Statement

RGC Funding Information

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RFS: Development of Advanced Electric Machines and Smart Power Drives for Electric Propulsion

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