Towards control of soft robotic knee brace for ACL deficient patients

Finished: 2021-02-19

MSc assignment

In ACL-rupture, as a very common injury in the knee joint, knee anterior stability is highly affected. Costly rehabilitative trials are required to strengthen Hamstring muscle activation to provide stability to a knee with ACL deficiency.

Recently a commercial knee brace was equipped with pneumatic artificial muscles (PAM) which revealed effectiveness in reducing Hamstring activation. However, a deeper understanding of how PAM actuation can influence hamstring activation is required in order to control the knee brace actuation system.

In this study using musculoskeletal models, different aspects of the actuation mechanism on hamstring muscle activities are studied.