Natural Pelvic Motion Assistance of NaTure-gaits with
Adaptive Body Weight Support
Trieu Phat Luu, H. B. Lim, Xingda Qu, and K. H. Low
Abstract—Body weight support (BWS) gait rehabilitation
was first introduced in 1987. This method provides a safe and
effective environment for gait rehabilitation process. However,
the restriction of pelvic motion and body weight shifting are
limitations of this method. BWS control strategies focus on
providing a precise supporting force for the patient. Interaction
between the BWS system and a patient as well as pelvic motion
guidance are often missing. In this work, a robotic mechanism
is designed to provide natural pelvic motion, with capability of
active body weight support. An adaptive control strategy for
structural BWS (pa-sBWS) with pelvic motion is introduced to
address the issues faced in conventional BWS apparatus. A
reference trajectory for pelvic motion is planned and the
control strategy will allow the motion of the patient to deviate
from the desired trajectory. This method provides an active
body weight support to promote the active participation of the
patient so that the therapeutic outcome will be improved. The
control strategy also supports the pelvic motion during the
training process. Experiment set up was built to verify the
response of the proposed controller. The experiment results
show that the control strategy is able to achieve the objective of
this work. The detail of experiments and results are presented
at the end of this paper.
I. INTRODUCTION
IN general, the concept of BWS apparatus found in robotic
gait rehabilitation system can be classified as cable-harness
BWS (cBWS) concept and structural BWS (sBWS) concept.
Cable-harness BWS concept uses a harness system, which
worn by the patient. To offload the patient’s body weight,
the harness system is connected to a counterpoise system
through cable. Cable-harness BWS concept is commonly
found in most gait rehabilitation systems, for example,
Lokomat [1], Gait Trainer II [2], Haptic Walker [3], and
WalkTrainer [4]. While most of these systems adopt simple
cable-harness BWS apparatus, Lokomat developed a more
sophisticated BWS module, which provides a constant
supporting force throughout the training process [5].
Manuscript submitted January 11, 2011. This work was supported by
National Medical Research Council under NMRC Grant1051/2006.
Trieu Phat Luu is PhD student of School of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. (Phone: +65-
6790-5568; fax: +65-67935921; e-mail: luut0004@e.ntu.edu.sg)
H.B. Lim is PhD student of School of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. (e-mail:
LIMH0048@e.ntu.edu.sg )
Xingda Qu is Assistant Professor of School of Mechanical and
Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. (e-
mail: XDQU@ntu.edu.sg )
K.H. Low is Professor of School of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He is the
principal investigator of the NMRC project. (phone: +65-67905755; e-mail:
mkhlow@ntu.edu.sg )
In contrast, sBWS concept uses an extended robotic
mechanism to support the patient’s body weight by holding
either at the waist level or at the back. This concept is less
popular compared to cBWS. KineAssist [6] and PAM &
POGO [7] use this concept for their rehabilitation systems.
Based on the sBWS concept, a Natural and Tunable
Rehabilitation Gait System (NaTUre-gaits) was designed to
provide body weight support with the pelvic harness,
holding at the pelvis of the patient [8, 9].
There are three principles for gait rehabilitation: practice,
specificity and effort [10-12]. Active participation of
patients is one of the key factors to achieve the third
principle and help to maximize the therapeutic outcome [13].
While robotic BWS system effectively reduces the laborious
requirement of therapists, creates a safe environment for the
patients to practice walking, it seldom interacts with patient.
The current control strategies for BWS system mainly focus
on providing a precise and constant supporting force for the
patient. Force control method was implemented in order to
control the uploading force precisely [14]. However, these
control strategies do not allowed interaction between patient
and the robotic BWS system; thus, it often allows the
patients to remain completely passive during the training
course, result in poor recovery process [12, 15].
In the view of bio-cooperative concept, Lokomat
developed an adaptive body weight support algorithm
(aBWS) for the Lokolift body weight support system [16].
aBWS strategy will adjust the amount of supportive force
from the Lokolift during the training process based on the
performance of the patient. However, since Lokomat applies
cable harness BWS for body support, the patient’s pelvic
movement is constrained when being trained with the
system.
This paper introduces a patient-cooperative control
strategy for the pelvic assistance (PA) mechanism of our
NaTUre-gaits system. The PA mechanism was designed
based on structural BWS concept. Therefore, the controller
is designed not only to provide an adaptive body weight
support to promote active participation of the patient but also
to guide the pelvis along a reference trajectory. We named
the sBWS control strategy as pelvic motion adaptive sBWS
(pa-sBWS).
II. DESCRIPTION OF ROBOTIC SYSTEM
NaTUre-gaits was designed for four functions for gait
rehabilitation: pelvic control, active assistance to lower limb,
BWS (without restricting pelvic motion during walking),
and functional over-ground walking. These functions are follows the desired trajectory qd, the BWS apparatus will
realized by the following modules found on NaTUre-gaits, only provide desired BWS force fr. The desired BWS force
Robotic Orthosis (RO), Mobile Platform (MP), and Pelvic will be set to zero when the patient is able to follow the
Assistance (PA). RO provides gait locomotion assistance for desired trajectory and self supports his body weight.
lower limb, PA provides pelvic motion and BWS, and MP Denotation used in the pelvic motion adaptive BWS and
allows the functional over-ground walking. control scheme for pa-sBWS are displayed in Fig. 1 and Fig.
The control algorithm introduced in this paper will be 2, respectively. The actual pelvic position obtained from PA
implemented on the PA module. This section describes the sub-mechanism kinematic is denoted as qa in the control
mechanism of the PA module. The module is designed to scheme. Pelvic position error, qe, is the difference between
provide pelvic motion and BWS during walking using one the desired position and the actual position. When the pelvic
mechanism. The BWS force is provided from PA to the position error exists, a vertical interaction force between the
patient via a specially designed harness. patient and the PA system occurs and it is denoted as fv. The
pelvic position error qe is used in the adaptive controller and
A. Design of Robotic Mechanism for PA Module
the Virtual Model Control (VMC) generator to create a
Human gait locomotion consists of six determinants, virtual spring with the stiffness k. The stiffness k is the
which are pelvic rotation, pelvic tilt, stance phase knee impedance parameter and it is updated step by step. The
flexion, knee mechanisms, foot mechanisms, and lateral allowed deviation of pelvic position from the reference
displacement of the pelvis [17]. Three out of six of these trajectory is denoted as qf and it is obtained from the
determinants are pelvic motions, which highlight the impedance controller when the vertical interaction force fv
important of pelvic control during gait rehabilitation. The exists. The pelvic position command qc is calculated from qd
pelvic motion significantly affects human’s gait. The lack of and qf and sent to PA. The maximum deviation of pelvic
pelvic control on patient will result in alteration of gait
position from the reference trajectory is defined as qˆ . The
pattern, which should be avoided [18]. The PA mechanism f
consists of a pair of robotic arms. Each robotic arm consists difference between the current and the previous pelvic
of three actuated motions. The details of PA mechanism is position error is ∆qe,i. The pelvic position is moving further
described in [8]. from the reference trajectory when ∆qe,i>0.
qe  qd  qa (3)
III. ACTIVE BODY WEIGHT SUPPORT WITH NATURAL
PELVIC MOTION ASSISTANCE qe,i  qe,i  qe,i 1 (4)
This work proposed a BWS control strategy to optimize
qc  qd  q f (5)
the weight bearing on the lower limb. Instead of constant
BWS force provision, the strategy vary the amount of force
provide by BWS apparatus based on the patient’s
performance to increase his/her motivation during the qˆ f
qe
training course. Apart from optimization of the weight s2 qd
qa
bearing, the BWS strategy aims to promote weight shifting
during the training, by minimizing the motion restriction on l 2 fv
the pelvis. The controller is designed for the PA sub-
mechanism of NaTUre-gaits system.
 x2 , z2 
s1
 x1 , z1 
A. Kinematic of the PA sub-mechanism
1 Workspace of PA sub-
The end effector position of the sub-mechanism is given mechanism
as:  x0 , z0 
P  x y3 z3  (1)
PA,3  3 Fig. 1. Denotation used in the pa-sBWS controller (dotted line is the
reference trajectory of the pelvic position, dash line is the maximum
The kinematic chain of the sub-mechanism is depicted in allowed deviation of pelvic position)
Fig. 1. The sagittal motion (x3, z3) of pelvic is provided by
the linear motion of s1 and s2:
qd + qe Adaptive + qc qa
2 2 PA
s  x3  z3
2 - control -
1

2
 sin  z3 / s2  (2) qf

VMC k Impedance fv
s 
1
 x2 l cos  2  x0 2  z2 l sin  2  z0 2 Generat control
or
B. Controller Design
Ideally, when the end effector of PA sub-mechanism PPA,3
Fig. 2: Control scheme for pelvic motion adaptive sBWS (pa-sBWS)
 C. Virtual Model Control (VMC) q f  qˆ f  ( fv ) (7)
The PA-sBWS controller is designed to increase the active
participation from the patient during the training course by  q 1 
1 f 
varying the amount of supportive force based on the fv   ln  2. 1 1

(8)
  qˆ f 
patient’s performance instead of constant BWS force    
provision. The controller also provides the natural pelvic d ( fv )
motion for the patient. To achieve the proposed control k
strategy, a Virtual Model Control (VMC) technique is d (q f )
applied. This control technique make uses of virtual 2
mechanical components, such as springs, dampers, masses, k ( , q f )  (9)
 q 2 
or any other imaginable component in creation of control 
   1
f
model for generating actuator torques (or force) [19]. VMC 
allows the generation of virtual reaction force at any point  qˆ f  
along the desired trajectory. For the application in this study,
 
a virtual spring is created along the pelvis trajectory. The Where qˆ f is the maximum deviation specified by the
parameters of virtual spring are varied based on the pelvic
therapist, fv is the vertical interaction force between the
position and direction of movement. The virtual spring is
subject and PA, δ is the slope of the bi-polar sigmoid
designed based on the four criteria as follow:
function.
1) If the pelvic position pa is equal or higher than the
From (6) and (7), the vertical supportive force fv can be
reference trajectory (qa>qd) the virtual spring is turn off
derived as in (8). The function of the virtual spring’s
and the controller is in position control mode. In this
situation, the patient can follow the desired trajectory stiffness k is the derivative of fv with respect to qf and it is
and self support his body weight. Therefore, the VMC shown in (9)
model is turn off and the supportive force is zero. Stiffness value of the virtual spring is proportional to the
2) When the pelvic position pa is lower than the reference allowed deviation of pelvic position qf and inversely
trajectory (qa<qd), an interaction force fv between the proportional to the slope δ. The stiffness function k(δ,qf) is
subject and the PA will occurs and it is measured by plotted in Fig. 3. Based on the tendency of the pelvic
force sensors. In this case, the virtual spring is turn on movement, the stiffness value of the virtual spring can be
and the controller is in compliance mode so that the modified during the training process by changing the slope δ
deviation of pelvic position is allowed and the patient is in (9) so that the third and the fourth criteria can be satisfied.
encouraged to actively participate in the training
process. This deviation is designed to change smoothly k ( , q f )
250
from zero to the maximum value qˆ f specified by the
therapist. The maximum allowed deviation warranty 200
that the pelvic movement is natural.
3) To increase the motivation of the patient, the stiffness of 150
the virtual spring is designed to follow the tendency of
the pelvic movement. For this purpose, the virtual 100
spring is designed so that its stiffness is decreased when
the pelvic position moving further from the reference 50

trajectory (∆qe,i>0) and vice versa.

0
4) When qe>0 and ∆qe,i remains zero for a certain period of 0
2
time T, the pelvic position is passively driven along the qf 5 1
1.5

path that offset from the desired trajectory by the 10 0

0.5 
amount of qf. In this situation, the virtual spring is Fig. 3. Stiffness value of virtual spring as a function of slope and
required to increase the supportive force to move the allowed deviation of pelvic position
patient back to the reference trajectory after this period.
This can be obtained by implementing an adaptive D. Adaptive Control
control to increase the stiffness of the virtual spring. The adaptive control is developed to update the value of
In order to obtain the first and the second criteria of the slope δ step by step based on the performance of the
virtual spring design, the bi-polar sigmoid function is used to patient.
generate a smooth transition in the range of [-1,1] from the  j 1  f  j  g qe, j (10)
vertical force fv. For the proposed controller, the pelvis is
only upward supported (fv >0) and (0≤γ(fv)≤1). qe, j  qe, j  qe, j 1 (11)
2
 ( fv )  1 (6) The adaptive rule is shown in (10) and (11). Where δ j is
 f v
1 e
the slope value at the iteration j (0<δ j), qe , j is the
difference between the average of pelvic position error in j
and (j-1) iteration, g is the gain of qe ,i , and f is the
forgetting factor (0<f <1).
When the subject tends to move away from the reference
trajectory, the slope will be proportional increased and vice
versa. Therefore, the virtual spring’s stiffness is adapted
during the training process to follow the tendency of the
pelvis movement (third criteria). When qe , j  0 , the slope
will be reduced and the stiffness of the virtual spring
increases to move the pelvis back to the reference trajectory
(fourth criteria).
The average of pelvic position error in j iteration is
calculated by the moving average method.
N. j
1
qe, j 
N

i  N ( j 1)
qe,i (12)
Where N is the number of samples taken in one iteration.
IV. EXPERIMENTS AND RESULTS
A. Hardware Setup for Experiment
In this work, the pa-sBWS controller is not implemented
on NaTUre-gaits for safety considerations. To study and
verify the response of the proposed control strategy, a one
DoF linear moving platform is built and tested. The concept
and procedure of designing and implementing the pa-sBWS
controller for this linear moving platform are similar to the
PA sub-mechanism of NaTUre-gaits system.
The linear moving platform comprises one DC brushed motor, ball
screw, and a movable block attached to the ball screw (as depicted in
Fig. 4). The experiment is conducted to obtain the initial
result of the control algorithm. Flexi force sensor is used to
obtain the interaction force, also refers to as the vertical
interaction force in the pa-sBWS control algorithm.
DC
brushed
motor
Ball screw
with
guiding
rail
Flexi force
sensing
Movable
point
block
Fig. 4. Linear moving platform set up
B. Software Implementation for the Controller
xPC Target is a Matlab toolbox which provides a high
performance host-target environment that enables us to
connect our Simulink and Stateflow models to physical
systems and execute them in real time on PC hardware. It
supports rapid prototyping, hardware in the loop (HIL)
testing, and application deployment in open hardware
architecture. The main advantageous features of xPC target
are providing more than 300 commercial I/O boards, dealing
with low language programming and tuning system
parameters on-line.
Fig. 5. Layout of controller design in Simulink
In this work, a system model is first created using
Simulink control blocks on host PC. The model is run in
simulation mode to check the response of the controller.
Once the controller is successfully simulated, the interface
blocks from the xPC Target block library will be added to
the Simulink model. For example, the Sensoray 626 AD
block and the Sensoray 626 ENCT block are used to read the
interaction force and encoder value, respectively. Sensoray
626 DA will output the command signal to Galil power
amplifier. Sensoray 626 Init block declares the Sensoray 626
card and it is not connected. The complete layout of the
controller design in Simulink is provided in Fig. 5.
The updated model is interpreted to executable code by
using host PC with Real Time workshop and a C/C++
compiler. The executable code is downloaded from host PC
to target PC, which is running xPC Target Real Time kernel.
This kernel is booted by a floppy disk or CD created by
Matlab software. The communication between host-target
PC is RS232. The physical system can be tested in real time,
after the executable code is downloaded to the target PC.
C. Experimental Results
A sinusoidal wave with the amplitude of 360 is used for
the desired trajectory of the movable block in the experiment
set up. The maximum allowed deviation from the reference
trajectory is 100. The fundamental sample time of Simulink
model is 2 milliseconds. Experiments are carried in 10
seconds and 100 samples are taken in one iteration for
updating the slope δ. The minimum value of the slope in bi-
polar sigmoid function is 0.1. The response and stability of
the controller is tested and verified under two scenarios of
interaction force applied. In the first scenario (I), the pa-
sBWS controller with two different values of forgetting
factors, f=1 (scenario I-a) and f=0.8 (scenario I-b), is tested
with a constant vertical interaction force (fv). The purpose of the patient. In this case, pa-sBWS is expected to support the
this experiment is to evaluate the response of the pa-sBWS patient to move back to the desired trajectory to assure the
controller based on four criteria mentioned in section III, and correct pattern of pelvic movement. Results in Fig. 7 shows
illustrate the effect of forgetting factor in the controller. In that the pa-sBWS is able to fulfill the requirement.
real training process, the interaction force between patient
and robotic system is not constant. Therefore, in the second
scenario (II), a force is varied to test the response of the pa-
sBWS controller. The responses of the controller for scenario
(I) are shown in Fig. 6 and Fig. 7. The values of slope and
stiffness in scenario (I) updated step by step are shown in
Fig. 8 and Fig. 9. The interaction force and the response of
pa-sBWS controller for scenario (II) are shown in Fig. 10.
D. Result Discussion
The experiment results confirm that the pa-sBWS
Fig. 6. Response of the controller for scenario (I-a), dotted line-desired
controller allows some extent of deviation from the desired trajectory (unit, mm), dashed line-maximum allowed deviation (unit,
trajectory when the vertical interaction force exists. The mm), solid line-actual trajectory (unit, mm)
actual trajectory is smooth and it is limited in the maximum
allowed deviation which is defined by the user (Fig. 6 and
Fig. 7). In the actual operation of the body weight support
gait rehabilitation, the interaction force exists only when the
patient do not follow the desired trajectory. When the
interaction force occurs, the proposed controller allows the
patient to influence and deviate from the desired trajectory.
The maximum allowed deviation is specified to assure the
patient’s pelvis is guided in the correct pattern during the
training process. Therefore, the patient can participate
actively in the training course and the first and second Fig. 7. Response of the controller for scenario (I-b), dotted line-desired
criteria are satisfied. trajectory (unit, mm), dashed line-maximum allowed deviation (unit,
The third criteria is accomplished when the response of mm), solid line-actual trajectory (unit, mm)
the controller follows the tendency of the pelvic movement.
The experiment results show that the slope δ is increased to
modify the stiffness of the virtual spring when the patient
tends to deviate from the desired trajectory and vice versa
(Fig. 8 and Fig. 9). In other words, pa-sBWS allows the
patient to drive the Pelvic Assistance (PA) to follow the
tendency of the pelvic movement. By doing so, we believe
that patient’s motivation will be increased in the training
course and the therapeutic outcome is improved.
In order to obtain the fourth criteria, the controller must be Fig. 8. Slope δ and the stiffness k of the virtual spring in scenario (I-a)
dotted line- slope, solid line-stiffness (unit, N/mm)
able to move the patient back to the desired trajectory if the
patient can’t support him/herself within a certain period. In
scenario (I-a), the controller response deviates from the
desired input by a certain value (Fig. 6). In scenario (I-b),
the forgetting factor is included and the response of the
controller becomes closer to the reference input after a
certain period of time (Fig. 7). The forgetting factor plays an
important role in determining the time period to improve the
response of the controller. The effect of forgetting factor is
described in (10). It is employed to adapt the slope value δ
step by step, result in the changing of stiffness value k. The Fig. 9. Slope δ and the stiffness k of the virtual spring in scenario (I-b).
changing of slope and stiffness value in scenario (I-a) and (I- dotted line- slope δ, solid line-stiffness (unit, N/mm)
b) are illustrated in Fig. 8 and Fig. 9, respectively. In the
Result of scenario (II) shows that the response from pa-
view of rehabilitation, scenario (I) happens when the patient
sBWS follows the desired trajectory when there is no
can’t make any effort to support him/herself; thus, the
interaction force and satisfies four criteria aforementioned
interaction force between the patient and PA is the weight of
when the interaction force varied. The interaction force and
the response of pa-sBWS are shown in Fig. 10
Fig. 10. Response of the controller for scenario (II), dotted line-desired
trajectory (unit, mm), solid line-actual trajectory (unit, mm), dashed line-
interaction force applied (unit, N)
V. CONCLUDING REMARKS AND FUTURE WORKS
This work introduces a pelvic motion active sBWS (pa-
sBWS) control strategy for Pelvic Assistance module (PA) of
our NaTUre-gaits system. pa-sBWS control strategy
provides an active body weight support to promote patient’s
participation for a better therapeutic outcome, it is also
expected to drive the pelvis along a reference trajectory.
Experiments are conducted to verify the response of the
proposed controller. The results show that it functions as
expected.
In this work, the pa-sBWS controller is not implemented
on NaTUre-gaits for safety considerations. The controller
will be implemented on NaTUre-gaits prototype II in the
future after thoroughly tested. The performance and stability
of the proposed control strategy will be restudied with actual
subject using the gait rehabilitation system.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to thank the Department of the
Rehabilitation Medicine at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital
(TTSH) and the Robotics Research Center (RRC) of the
Nanyang Technological University (NTU) for their support
to this work. The financial support by the NMRC Research
Grant 1051/2006 is also acknowledged.
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