Development of Intelligent Ankle-Foot Orthosis (i-AFO) with MR Fluid Brake and Control System for Gait Control

Ankle-Foot Orthoses (AFOs) are orthotic devices supporting movements of ankles of disabled people for example hemiplegia, polio, peroneal nerve palsy, etc. In our research, we have developed intelligently and passively controllable AFOs (i-AFO) which can control its ankle torque with a compact Magneto-rheological fluid brake (MRB). In this paper, we describe a design method and a control method of the i-AFO. In the final part of this paper, we present experimental results in which the i-AFO was applied to gait control for a polio patient.