MORE | Summer 2021

A Soft Robotic Hip Exosuit (SR-HExo) to Enable Entrainment during Human Locomotion

Over 7 million American stroke survivors require gait rehabilitation due to initial or persistent mobility deficits. Expansion of the “basin of entrainment” is a rehabilitative practice that improves gait uniformity through the application of small, periodic, mechanical perturbations to which the human locomotor system then synchronizes. A soft hip exosuit was developed to administer these precise perturbations at the front or back of the hip via a pair of lightweight, flat fabric pneumatic actuators orientated in X’s. The exosuit successfully expanded the basin of entrainment for 11 healthy participants by 15% through perturbations applied with either set of actuators.