Brain-Controlled Adaptive Lower Limb Exoskeleton for Rehabilitation of Post-Stroke Paralyzed

Abstract

Stroke is a standout amongst the most imperative reasons of incapacity on the planet. Due to partial or full paralysis, the majority of patients are compelled to rely upon parental figures and caregivers in residual life. With post-stroke rehabilitation, different types of assistive technologies have been proposed to offer developments to the influenced body parts of the incapacitated. In a large portion of these devices, the clients neither have control over the tasks nor can get feedback concerning the status of the exoskeleton. Additionally, there is no arrangement to detect user movements or accidental fall. The proposed framework tackles these issues utilizing a brain-controlled lower limb exoskeleton (BCLLE) in which the exoskeleton movements are controlled based on user intentions. An adaptive mechanism based on sensory feedback is integrated to reduce the system false rate. The BCLLE uses a flexible design which can be customized according to the degree of disability. The exoskeleton is modeled according to the human body anatomy, which makes it a perfect fit for the affected body part. The BCLLE system also automatically identifies the status of the paralyzed person and transmits information securely using Novel-T Symmetric Encryption Algorithm (NTSA) to caregivers in case of emergencies. The exoskeleton is fitted with motors which are controlled by the brain waves of the user with an electroencephalogram (EEG) headset. The EEG headset captures the human intentions based on the signals acquired from the brain. The brain-computer interface converts these signals into digital data and is interfaced with the motors via a microcontroller. The microcontroller controls the high torque motors connected to the exoskeleton's joints based on user intentions. Classification accuracy of more than 80% is obtained with our proposed method which is much higher compared with all existing solutions.

Keywords

• Artificial skin
• assistive technologies
• brain-computer interface (BCI)
• electroencephalogram (EEG)
• brain-controlled exoskeleton
• paralyzed