National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering 5R21EB034879-03

Towards Physical-Interface Pressure Monitoring Outside the Laboratory with Lower-Limb Electronic Clothing and Robust Optimization

This NIH-funded project aims to develop wearable lower-limb electronic clothing integrated with sensors and algorithms to monitor pressure at the interface between residual limbs and prosthetic sockets outside the lab for over 16 hours, improving prosthetic comfort and preventing complications.

Description

Develop lower-limb clothing and optimization-based algorithms that merge information from electronic textiles, inertial sensors, portable load cells, and biomechanical models to characterize pressure sources at the physical interface between residual lower-limbs and prosthetic sockets. Enable analysis of pressure for more than 16 continuous hours outside the laboratory with automatic calibration of pressure magnitude and location relative to the human body. Aim to create an optimization framework to calibrate pressure sensors with partially unknown placement, develop a clothing paradigm for pressure and inertial measurements in residual limbs, and demonstrate feasibility of one day of unsupervised pressure measurements outside the laboratory. Establish a wearable sensing platform for long-term analysis of lower-limb device pressures with potential applications in reducing asymmetric loading risks and designing feedback control laws for exosuits.

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