Wearable systems for monitoring physical activity and optimizing an ankle exoskeleton

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract
Globally, hundreds of millions of people face mobility challenges in their daily life due to obesity, injury, muscle weakness and deterioration, and age. Mobility is closely related to people's independence and quality of life. Having limited mobility impacts many factors such as physical activity, quality of sleep, and symptoms of depression and anxiety. Historically, people address these mobility challenges by visiting experts in a clinic. The patient discusses the problem, performs some physical or medical tests using laboratory equipment, and then receives a diagnosis or rehabilitation instruction from the clinician. Periodic visits may be needed for rehabilitation or monitoring their progression. People must be able to reach a clinic, afford the payments, and make the time for the visits and tests in order to try to solve their mobility challenge. Thus, only a small fraction of the global population can benefit from the knowledge and solutions provided by a clinic. Translating these clinical solutions for use at home could address mobility challenges on a larger scale. Creating at home solutions to these mobility challenges is difficult because the technology must be both portable and accurate. Ideally, these at home solutions would be wearable, low-cost, and easily used for days or weeks. In addition, these at home solutions must be accurate enough to provide meaningful outcomes to mobility. Clinical solutions may rely on expert knowledge, careful calibration of sensors, and specialized equipment which are challenging to imbue into a device that can be operated by any person. This thesis presents the design and evaluation of wearable systems to monitor movement, estimate energy expenditure, and optimize exoskeleton assistance. These projects explore how clinical mobility tools can be translated into wearable solutions. Wearable technology may be able to provide the same functionality as clinical tools to a much broader population facing mobility challenges. Thus, these wearable tools may allow many more people to improve their mobility.

Description

Type of resource text
Form electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource
Extent 1 online resource.
Place California
Place [Stanford, California]
Publisher [Stanford University]
Copyright date 2021; ©2021
Publication date 2021; 2021
Issuance monographic
Language English

Creators/Contributors

Author Slade, Patrick
Degree supervisor Delp, Scott
Degree supervisor Kochenderfer, Mykel J, 1980-
Thesis advisor Delp, Scott
Thesis advisor Kochenderfer, Mykel J, 1980-
Thesis advisor Collins, Steve (Steven Hartley)
Degree committee member Collins, Steve (Steven Hartley)
Associated with Stanford University, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Subjects

Genre Theses
Genre Text

Bibliographic information

Statement of responsibility Patrick Slade.
Note Submitted to the Department of Mechanical Engineering.
Thesis Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2021.
Location https://purl.stanford.edu/kz549zf1593

Access conditions

Copyright
© 2021 by Patrick Slade
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

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