IEEE ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION LETTERS, VOL. 4, NO.
3, JULY 2019
A Soft Wearable Robotic Ankle-Foot-Orthosis
for Post-Stroke Patients
Junghan Kwon , Ji-Hong Park, Subyeong Ku, YeongHyeon Jeong, Nam-Jong Paik , and Yong-Lae Park
Abstract—We propose a soft robotic ankle-foot-orthosis for post-
stroke patients, which is inexpensive, lightweight, easy to wear, and
capable of gait assistance for rehabilitation not only in the clinic but
also in daily life. The device includes a 3D-printed flexible brace
and an ankle supportthat allows natural flexion and extension of
the ankle but provides support in the vertical direction prevent-
ing the structure from buckling. A bi-directional tendon-driven
actuator was used for assisting both dorsiflexion and plantarflex-
ion. The device also contains a wearable gait sensing module for
measuring the leg trajectory and the foot pressures in real time for
feedback control. Since the device is powered by a rechargeable
battery and communicates with the main controller wirelessly, it
is fully untethered, making it mobile and comfortable. Using the
measured sensor data and the biomechanics of the legs, the real-
time gait phase is detected, and then a gait assistance algorithm
for both dorsiflexion and plantarflexion provides an accurate pre-
diction of a control phase and timing although there are variations
in the gait trajectories among individuals. As a feasibility test, the
walking experiment was conducted with a post-stroke patient. The
result showed improvement in both gait propulsion and foot-drop
prevention.
Index Terms—Soft robotics, wearable robotics, post-stroke re-
habilitation, gait detection.
I. INTRODUCTION
ALKING is a repeated sequence of motions by mov-
W ing two legs alternately, and it is one of the most
Manuscript received October 15, 2018; accepted March 10, 2019. Date of
publication April 1, 2019; date of current version April 12, 2019. This letter was
recommended for publication by Associate Editor C.-H. Yeow and Editor K.-J.
Cho upon evaluation of the reviewers’ comments. This work was supported in
part by the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Korean Gov-
ernment (MSIT) under Grant NRF-2016R1A5A1938472, in part by the Seoul
National University Bundang Hospital Research Fund under Grant 14-2017-025,
and in part by the Interdisciplinary Research Initiatives Program under Grant
800-20170165 from College of Engineering and College of Medicine, Seoul
National University. (Junghan Kwon and Ji-Hong Park contributed equally to
this work.) (Corresponding authors: Nam-Jong Paik; Yong-Lae Park.)
J. Kwon, S. Ku, Y. Jeong, and Y.-L. Park are with the Department
of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Soft Robotics Research Cen-
ter, Institute of Advanced Machines and Design, Seoul National University,
Seoul 08826, South Korea (e-mail:, jhkwon@snu.ac.kr; shetshield@snu.ac.kr;
yunghyun1208@snu.ac.kr; ylpark@snu.ac.kr).
J.-H. Park and N.-J. Paik are with the Seoul National University Bundang
Hospital, Seongnam 13620, South Korea (e-mail:,parkjihong.md@gmail.com;
njpaik@snubh.org).
This letter has supplementary downloadable material available at
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org, provided by the authors. This video, viewable with
QuickTime Player (MAC), VLC Media Player (Windows), shows the design,
fabrication, control of Soft Wearable Robotic Orthosis for rehabilitation of post-
stroke patients. The size of the video is 6.55 MB. Contact (jhkwon@snu.ac.kr)
for further questions about this work.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LRA.2019.2908491
2377-3766 © 2019 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
2547
important functions in daily life. Since walking is performed by
harmonious cooperation of bones, muscles, sensory receptors, a
neurotransmission system, and central and peripheral nerve sys-
tems, gait disorders can occur if there is a disease in one of these
subsystems [1]–[3]. Particularly, post-stroke patients accompa-
nied by hemiplegia experience muscular weakness of their ankle
joints, which induces degradation of propulsion force during the
stance phase and reduced clearance during the swing phase due
to foot-drop. This muscular weakness increases the degree of
asymmetry in leg movements, muscle fatigues, and the risk of
falls during walking. Even if the patient does not die due to this
disorder, a long-term treatment is necessary causing physical,
economical, and mental costs.
Currently, various types of assistive devices are used for gait
rehabilitation. A plastic ankle-foot orthosis (AFO) is the most
widely used to improve the alignment of the ankle joint, in-
creasing the walking speed and reducing the energy consump-
tion during walking [4]–[6]. However, since the AFO permits
only limited ankle motions with zero degree of freedom, the
movement of the ankle is significantly different from normal
walking gait pattern. Although a certain level of gait motions
can be achieved by using hinge joints and springs, this only per-
mits passive movements with a predetermined stiffness and very
limited degrees of freedom.
To overcome this limitation, robotic devices with active asis-
tances have been developed, and their positive clinical effects
for gait rehabilitation have been reported [7]–[10]. However, the
number of patients receiving treatment using a robotic device is
highly limited due to its high cost and bulkiness. Therefore, there
is a demand for a device that is inexpensive, lightweight, and
easy to wear, and can be used for gait rehabilitation in hospital,
home and daily life.
To address the above issues, there are several challenges to
overcome. First, an orthosis made of rigid materials can cause
discomfort to the wearer and restrict the natural movement dur-
ing walking. As a solution, it is possible to use flexible materials
making the device light and easy to wear when made in a form
of clothes. For this reason, soft wearable devices [11]–[14] have
been recently proposed. With soft materials, anchoring of the
actuators and sensors on a brace should be carefully consid-
ered to prevent slippage of components and pressure concen-
tration on the skin. It can be designed in a form that wraps a
wide area of a fixed part of the body’s convex geometry, such
as hips and knees, and distributes the pressures. However, this
can make the system bulky due to the large area of the structure
even though the device is only for a single joint. Therefore, it is
necessary to minimize the size of the orthosis while allow-
ing bending motions of the ankle and preventing slippage and
2548
Fig. 1. Illustration of a prototype of the soft wearable robotic ankle-foot-
orthosis for post-stroke patients.
vertical force for anchoring. In addition, a simple and automated
fabrication process is required to be competitive in price.
Second, since soft actuators, such as pneumatic artificial mus-
cles (PAMs) [15], [16] and tendon-driven systems [17]–[19]
produce only pulling forces, an antagonistic pair of actuators
are required to assist both dorsiflexion and plantarflexioin mo-
tions. However, the system in this case may be more complex
and heavier as the number of actuators increases. To address this
issue, a cable-pulling mechanism in both directions with a single
motor has been introduced [18].
Third, a gait sensing module and a detection algorithm are
required to control the actuator of the orthosis at proper timing. In
particular, post-stroke patients have different gait patterns from
those of normal people, and individual differences also exist.
Since it is difficult to estimate the walking state and the control
timing with a limited number of sensors, individual tuning of
control parameters has been introduced [12].
For these reasons, we propose a soft wearable robotic ankle-
foot orthosis with a bi-directional tendon-driven actuator for
post-stroke patients (Fig. 1). We also present a fabrication
method taking advantage of 3D printing of flexible materials.
The proposed brace was designed with two flexible columns
that allow natural flexion motions of the ankle joint while pro-
viding vertical supports preventing the structure from buckling.
Wearable gait sensing modules were also developed to measure
the wearer’s lower limb motions and foot-ground contacts, and
integrated with the actuation module and the real-time control
system. From the sensor data, a skeletal model of the legs was
constructed in a sagittal plane, and the gait phase was detected in
real-time with the accurate prediction of a control phase and tim-
ing although there are differences in the gait trajectories among
individuals. Then, the assistive force was generated for both
dorsiflexion and plantarflexion.
To evaluate the performance of the device, a test of ground
walking was carried out with a post-stroke patient. The ex-
perimental results showed improvement in gait propulsion and
foot-drop prevention by the proposed control algorithm which
successfully estimated the control timing in real time.
IEEE ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION LETTERS, VOL. 4, NO. 3, JULY 2019
Fig. 2. Design and prototyping of flexible ankle brace. (a) 3D printing of flexi-
ble filament. (b) Flexible but incompressible ankle column. (c) Actual prototype
with ankle mock-up. (d) Simple wearing process using Velcro straps.
The rest of this letter is organized as follows. Section II de-
scribes the design of the soft robotic orthosis, followed by the
strategy of gait phase detection and assistive-force-generation
algorithm in Section III. The experimental results of a feasibil-
ity test of ground walking with/without the device are presented
in Section IV, and Section V concludes the letter.
II. DESIGN
A. Flexible Ankle Brace
The ankle brace was fabricated using a 3D-printer (Cubicon
Single Plus, Cubicon Inc.) (Fig. 2-a), which enabled quick fabri-
cation and easy parameter changes in the orthosis design accord-
ing to the body size of the user. To improve the wearability of
the brace, a flexible thermoplastic polyurethane filament (TPU,
Cubicon Inc.) was used as a 3D-printing material. The selected
TPU material shows similar flexibility to leather when printed in
thin sheets while providing relatively high stiffness in the form
of columns or blocks.
The brace was also designed to effectively anchor the actuator
for driving tendons (Fig. 2-b). Two flexible columns connecting
the shank and the heel pads allow rotation of the ankle while pre-
venting vertical compression (i.e., buckling). This is necessary
for anchoring that prevents the shank pad from slipping even
when the brace is loosely tied to the shank, only transmitting the
assistive torque to the ankle for rotation.
The proposed brace is an open-toe design, and adjustment can
be easily made to fit the foot size using a Velcro strap to achieve
both robust anchoring and easy wear-and-removal, as shown in
Fig. 2-c and 2-d. The foot size available for this prototype is
about 240 mm to 280 mm.
KWON et al.: SOFT WEARABLE ROBOTIC ANKLE-FOOT-ORTHOSIS FOR POST-STROKE PATIENTS 2549

Fig. 3. Bi-directional tendon-driven actuation module. (a) Components.

Cable-pulling mechanisms for (b) plantarflexion and (c) dorsiflexion.

The orthosis is 330 mm tall, 160 mm wide, and the total weight
of the device is 1,540 g including the flexible ankle brace with
the actuation module (580 g), the sensing module (400 g), and
the controller with a battery (560 g).

B. Actuation Module
A bi-directional tendon-driven winch module with an electric
motor was developed to minimize the size and the weight of
the device, as shown in Fig. 3. The pulley and the housing parts
were made of a rigid plastic material (VeroBlack Plus, Stratasys)
using a polyjet 3d-printer (Object30 Prime, Stratasys), with two
Bowden cables wound together on one pulley to produce pulling
forces for both plantarflexion and dorsiflexion (Fig. 3-b and
3-c). This actuation module was attached on the shank pad of
the flexible ankle brace to reduce the distance of cable routing
and the friction in the cables. A commercial high-performance
electric motor integrated with gears and a rotary encoder (MX-
64T, ROBOTIS) was employed to achieve a pulling force and a
stroke of up to 70 N and 100 mm, respectively with the pulley. Fig. 4. Soft wearable gait sensing module: (a) components of the module.
In this study, the maximum assistive force of 70 N was targeted (b) model of the human leg in a sagittal plane. (c) a photo wearing the sensing
modules on both legs and a soft orthosis on the right leg.
in plantarflexion.
For motor control, a current-based torque controller was em-
ployed to directly generate desired pulling forces. This control
and foot lf segment were measured from the wearer in advance.
approach reinforces safety in human-robot interactions because
Using the measured data from the soft strain sensors and the
it maintains the same output force upon a given command input
IMUs, a kinematic model of the human legs in the sagittal plane
despite sudden position changes in gait that may occur due to
was constructed, as shown in Fig. 4-b. An insole with three force
unexpected disturbances.
sensitive resistors (FSRs) (Flex force, Tekscan) was also used to
detect the ground contact of each foot.
C. Gait Sensing Module The sensor data were collected by a microcontroller (Arduino
A soft wearable gait sensing module was also developed for MKR-1000) operated remotely and powered by a battery. The
measuring the motions of both legs and the ground reaction wireless communication between the sensor board and the main
forces (GRFs) of both feet in real-time (Fig. 4-a). Soft strain controller allowed the entire brace to be fully untethered and
sensors were attached on the knee and the ankle joints to mea- comfortable during walking (Fig. 4-c).
sure relative joint angles, θk and θa , respectively. The design
of the soft sensors was based on our previous work [20], [21].
An inertial measurement unit (IMU) (MW-AHRS, NTRexLAB) D. Control Hardware
was additionally attached to each shank to measure the absolute The remote main controller communicates wirelessly with a
joint angles of the shank θs with respect to the ground. Then, local motor controller that was worn by the user (Fig. 5). Upon
the hip joint ankle was calculated from the measured knee ankle receiving the command signals, the portable motor, powered by
θk and the shank angle θs . The length of the thigh lt , shanklt , a 12 V rechargeable battery pack, generates a torque input to
2550
Fig. 5. Configuration of the control hardware interface.
Fig. 6. Screenshot of graphic user interface for monitoring and recording.
the winch that drives the ankle of the wearer. The main con-
troller receives sensor data from the sensing module, recognizes
the current walking pattern, calculates the appropriate control
force, and transmits the command to the motor controller. A
graphical user interface (GUI) in the main controller addition-
ally lets the user monitor and log the current walking status
(Fig. 6). This data can be used not only for real-time feedback
control of the robotic orthosis but also for providing quantitative
information of the patient’s gait patterns to caregivers or clinical
staffs.
III. GAIT DETECTION AND CONTROL
A. Real-Time Gait Phase Detection Algorithm
The gait phase of the patient is detected in real-time based
on the measured foot-ground contact information and the gait
motion of the paretic side on the sagittal plane (Fig. 7-a).
In a previous study, the sensor data were measured by a gyro
sensor on foot, and the gait event of the current gait cycle was
predicted from the sensor data of the last three gait cycles [13].
This method works if the walking speed and the pattern are
relatively constant, but the accuracy may become lowered if
they change suddenly. This is due to the difference of the gait
patterns in the previous and the current gait cycles.
IEEE ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION LETTERS, VOL. 4, NO. 3, JULY 2019
Fig. 7. Gait detection and control strategy: (a)the kinematic leg model recre-
ated for each instance in frames below it for a gait cycle. (b) FSR signals of
foot pressure insole. (c) Estimated GRF angle. (d) control strategy for three gait
phases.
However, the posture of the leg was directly calculated in real
time in our algorithm based on the soft sensor data and the IMUs
attached to the both legs and the kinematic model of the legs.
This approach always uses the sensor data at each moment in
the current gait cycle, and hence, it responds quickly to changes
in the gait speed and the patterns.
We distinguished the stance and the the swing phases using
the foot-ground contact information (Fig. 7-b). The stance was
determined by the period from heel strike until toe-off.
The heel rise event was determined based on the direction of
the GRF (Fig. 7-c). After calculating the positions of the ankle
and the hip joints from the sketch model of the lower limb, we
assumed that the direction of the GRF was in the same direction
of the vector from the ankle joint to hip joint (Fig. 4-b). Then, the
heel rise event was determined when the direction of the GRF
was perpendicular to the ground.
This assumption makes the center of pressure (COP) fixed
at the ankle joint and does not include the COP movement of
approximately ±10 cm during the stance phase. By assuming the
KWON et al.: SOFT WEARABLE ROBOTIC ANKLE-FOOT-ORTHOSIS FOR POST-STROKE PATIENTS
leg length of 80 cm, the maximum error for this approximation
was calculated as ±7.1◦ . The error would be relatively large in
the toe-off events due to the difference between the position of
the actual COP and the ankle joint. On the other hand, during
the heel strike and the heel rise events, the errors were reduced
because the position of the COP was close to the ankle position.
Since we used the estimated GRF direction to find the heel rise
event, this approximation would be applicable.
B. Assistive Force Generation
Assistive force was generated from the results of the gait phase
and the gait events detection. The peak plantarflexion moment
acting on the ankle during normal walking was considered as
1.31 Nm/kg on average [22]. Assuming the length of the moment
arm from the center of the ankle to the cable is 8 cm and the
patient’s weight is 65 kg, this moment corresponds to a pulling
force of 1,064 N. In this study, the maximum assistive force
of 70 N was generated in plantarflexion, which corresponds to
approximately 6.6%.
The control command was divided into three stages
(Fig. 7-d). First, between the heel strike event and the heel rise
event, a pulling force of 30 N in the plantarflexion direction
was generated to remove the cable slick. Second, between the
heel rise event and the toe-off event, a larger pulling force of
70 N was generated in the plantarflexion direction to assist the
wearer’s walking. Finally, between the toe-off event and the next
heel strike, a pulling force of 50 N in the dorsiflexion direction
was generated for prevention of foot-drop.
Our algorithm does not estimate the gait event using the pre-
vious gait cycles but estimates the gait event at each moment of
the gait cycle in real-time, and the method for finding the heel
rise event from the change of the estimated GRF direction was
implemented. Using this heel rise timing as a starting point for
assisting plantarflexion, control timing can be generated without
tuning parameters individually.
IV. RESULTS
A. Experimental Setup and Protocol
A feasibility test of ground walking was carried out to eval-
uate the performance of the prototype of the soft wearable
robotic orthosis with a 49-year-old male chronic stroke patient in
functional ambulation category 3. He had right middle cerebral
artery infarction 10 months before the experiment. His Fugl-
Meyer assessment lower extremity score was 24 out of 34 on
the paretic side, and his performance on 10-meter walking test
was 16.35 seconds. He underwent 3-D gait analysis which was
performed using an optical motion capture system (Vicon 370,
VICON) and a force plate (Kistler) (Fig. 8). An experienced
operator placed 15 reflective markers to calculate the kinematic
data [23].
The gait analysis was performed under three different walk-
ing conditions: 1) without the orthosis, 2) wearing the orthosis
without actuation, and 3) wearing the orthosis with actuation.
Motion was captured three times on a nine-meter walkway. The
average kinematic data along with the spatio-temporal parame-
ters, such as stride length, cadence, and walking speed were also
obtained. The swing time asymmetry was calculated by dividing
2551
Fig. 8. Schematic representation of experimental setup.
the largest swing time by the sum of the largest and the smallest
swing times. The asymmetry was calculated in the same man-
ner for the step length. The paretic propulsion was calculated as
the time integral of the positive anteroposterior ground reaction
forces according to previous study [24].
The study protocol was approved by the institutional review
board (IRB protocol number, B-1802-451-006) of Seoul Na-
tional University Bundang Hospital. The informed consent was
obtained from the participant in agreement with the rules of the
Ethics Committee.
B. Experimental Results
The joint angle of the paretic ankle of the subject in each
condition was measured throughout the gait cycle (Fig. 9-a).
The green line indicates the average movement of the ankle of
normal population. Without the orthosis, the ankle joint was
more plantar-flexed after toe-off and ended the gait cycle with-
out sufficient dorsiflexion. With the orthosis unactuated, the
plantarflexion and dorsiflexion were both limited compared with
normal motions. With orthosis actuated, appropriate plantarflex-
ion was achieved at the proper moment during the gait cycle.
The dorsiflexion showed a peak of approximately 10◦ higher
with the actuated orthosis. However, the slope was similar to the
condition without the orthosis. The amount of the assistive force
for dorsiflexion after toe-off might not be enough for this subject.
The experimental results showed that the paretic propulsion
of the subject was increased by wearing the unactuated orthosis,
and further increased by the actuated orthosis (Fig. 9-b). Thus,
our device would bestow stronger propulsive strength for the
stroke patients with low paretic propulsion. The improvement
of the swing time and the step length asymmetry was not obvi-
ous (Fig. 9-c), which means that our device did not mitigate the
subject’s gait asymmetry in the spatio-temporal aspect. This also
implies that the abnormality of the non-paretic side in the hemi-
plegic gait was not corrected. It is necessary to control the timing
of plantarflexion assistance according to the patient’s walking
speed and to consider the problems, such as the lateral shifting
of the weight during walking. Further investigation with larger
samples of walking trials would be necessary.
2552
Fig. 9. Experimental result of preliminary clinical test. (a) Improved ankle
joint angle in a gait cycle with the device on. (b) Improved foot propulsion of
paretic side. (c) Gait symmetry was also improved but not significant.
V. CONCLUSION
In this study, we developed a prototype of the robotic ankle-
foot-orthosis for post-stroke patients. A soft wearable gait sens-
ing module was also developed for measuring the lower limb
motion and the foot-ground contact. Then, the gait phase was
detected in real-time based on the sensing data and biomechan-
ics of the wearer’s leg motion, and finally, assistive force for
both dorsiflexion and plantarflexion was generated with accu-
rate prediction of a control phase and timing.
To evaluate the performance of the prototype, a ground walk-
ing test with a post-stroke patient was performed. The results
showed improvement in gait propulsion and foot-drop preven-
tion. This suggests that the proposed orthosis and control algo-
rithm have potential in the improvement of the hemiplegic gait
after stroke.
Testing the device with only one patient is the limitation of
our study. Future plans include upgrade of the orthosis design
and clinical trials with a larger number of patients.
IEEE ROBOTICS AND AUTOMATION LETTERS, VOL. 4, NO. 3, JULY 2019
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The institute of Engineering Research at SNU provided the
research facilities for this work.
REFERENCES
[1] J. Perry and J. Burnfield, Gait Analysis: Normal and Pathological Func-
tion, 2nd ed. Thorofare, NJ, USA: Slack Incorporated, 2010.
[2] M. L. Latash, Neurophysiological Basis of Movement. Champaign, IL,
USA: Human Kinetics, 2008.
[3] B. Salzman, “Gait and balance disorders in older adults,” Amer. Family
Physician, vol. 82, no. 1, pp. 61–68, 2010.
[4] P. Corcoran, “Effects of plastic and metal leg braces on speed and en-
ergy cost of hemiparetic ambulation,” Arch. Phys. Med. Rehabil., vol. 51,
pp. 69–77, 1970.
[5] H. Gök, A. Küçükdeveci, H. Altinkaynak, G. Yavuzer, and S. Ergin, “Ef-
fects of ankle-foot orthoses on hemiparetic gait,” Clin. Rehabil., vol. 17,
no. 2, pp. 137–139, 2003.
[6] H. Abe, A. Michimata, K. Sugawara, N. Sugaya, and S.-I. Izumi, “Improv-
ing gait stability in stroke hemiplegic patients with a plastic ankle-foot
orthosis,” Tohoku J. Exp. Med., vol. 218, no. 3, pp. 193–199, 2009.
[7] G. Chen, C. K. Chan, Z. Guo, and H. Yu, “A review of lower extremity
assistive robotic exoskeletons in rehabilitation therapy,” Crit. Rev. Biomed.
Eng., vol. 41, no. 4-5, pp. 343–363, 2013.
[8] J. Hidler et al., “Multicenter randomized clinical trial evaluating the effec-
tiveness of the lokomat in subacute stroke,” Neurorehabilitation Neural
Repair, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 5–13, 2009.
[9] G. Zeilig, H. Weingarden, M. Zwecker, I. Dudkiewicz, A. Bloch, and
A. Esquenazi, “Safety and tolerance of the rewalk exoskeleton suit for
ambulation by people with complete spinal cord injury: A pilot study,” J.
Spinal Cord Med., vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 96–101, 2012.
[10] I. Díaz, J. J. Gil, and E. Sánchez, “Lower-limb robotic rehabilitation: liter-
ature review and challenges,” J. Robot., vol. 2011, 2011, Art. no. 759764.
[11] Y.-L. Park et al., “Design and control of a bio-inspired soft wearable robotic
device for ankle–foot rehabilitation,” Bioinspiration Biomimetics, vol. 9,
no. 1, 2014, Art. no. 016007.
[12] L. N. Awad et al., “A soft robotic exosuit improves walking in patients
after stroke,” Sci. Transl. Med., vol. 9, no. 400, 2017, Art. no. eaai9084.
[13] J. Bae et al., “A soft exosuit for patients with stroke: Feasibility study
with a mobile off-board actuation unit,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Rehabil.
Robot., 2015, pp. 131–138.
[14] J. Bae et al., “A lightweight and efficient portable soft exosuit for paretic
ankle assistance in walking after stroke,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Robot.
Autom., 2018, pp. 2820–2827.
[15] J. Wirekoh and Y.-L. Park, “Design of flat pneumatic artificial muscles,”
Smart Mater. Struct., vol. 26, no. 3, 2017, Art. no. 035009.
[16] Y.-L. Park and R. J. Wood, “Smart pneumatic artificial muscle actuator
with embedded microfluidic sensing,” in Proc. IEEE Sens. Conf., 2013,
pp. 689–692.
[17] Y. Ding, I. Galiana, A. Asbeck, B. Quinlivan, S. M. M. De Rossi, and C.
Walsh, “Multi-joint actuation platform for lower extremity soft exosuits,”
in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Robot. Autom., 2014, pp. 1327–1334.
[18] A. T. Asbeck, K. Schmidt, I. Galiana, D. Wagner, and C. J. Walsh, “Multi-
joint soft exosuit for gait assistance,” in Proc. IEEE Int. Conf. Robot.
Autom., 2015, pp. 6197–6204.
[19] H. In, U. Jeong, H. Lee, and K.-J. Cho, “A novel slack-enabling tendon
drive that improves efficiency, size, and safety in soft wearable robots,”
IEEE/ASME Trans. Mechatronics, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 59–70, Feb. 2017.
[20] Y.-L. Park, B. Chen, and R. J. Wood, “Design and fabrication of soft
artificial skin using embedded microchannels and liquid conductors,” IEEE
Sens. J., vol. 12, no. 8, pp. 2711–2718, Aug. 2012.
[21] Y. Mengüç et al., “Wearable soft sensing suit for human gait measurement,”
Int. J. Robot. Res., vol. 33, no. 14, pp. 1748–1764, 2014.
[22] A. Hallemans, D. De Clercq, B. Otten, and P. Aerts, “3D joint dynamics
of walking in toddlers: A cross-sectional study spanning the first rapid
development phase of walking,” Gait Posture, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 107–118,
2005.
[23] M. P. Kadaba, H. Ramakrishnan, and M. Wootten, “Measurement of lower
extremity kinematics during level walking,” J. Orthopaedic Res., vol. 8,
no. 3, pp. 383–392, 1990.
[24] M. G. Bowden, C. K. Balasubramanian, R. R. Neptune, and S. A. Kautz,
“Anterior-posterior ground reaction forces as a measure of paretic leg
contribution in hemiparetic walking,” Stroke, vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 872–876,
2006.