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Automotive Engineering Commons

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Peer-Reviewed Conference Abstracts

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Full-Text Articles in Automotive Engineering

Muscle Synergies Improve Estimation Of Knee Contact Forces During Walking, Benjamin Fregly, Jonathan Walter, Allison Kinney, Scott Banks, Darryl D'Lima, Thor Besier, David Lloyd Dec 2015

Muscle Synergies Improve Estimation Of Knee Contact Forces During Walking, Benjamin Fregly, Jonathan Walter, Allison Kinney, Scott Banks, Darryl D'Lima, Thor Besier, David Lloyd

Allison Kinney

This study investigates whether use of subject-specific muscle synergies can improve optimization predictions of muscle excitation patterns and knee contact forces during walking. Muscle synergies describe how a small number of neural commands generated by the nervous system can be linearly combined to produce the broad range of muscle electromyographic (EMG) signals measured experimentally. By quantifying the interdependence of individual EMG signals, muscle synergies provide dimensionality reduction for the neural control redundancy problem. Our hypothesis was that use of subjectspecific muscle synergies to limit muscle excitation patterns would improve prediction of muscle EMG patterns at the hip, knee, and ankle …


Muscle Synergy Constraints Improve Prediction Of Knee Contact Force During Gait, Benjamin Fregly, Jonathan Walter, Allison Kinney, Scott Banks, Darryl D'Lima, Thor Besier, David Lloyd Dec 2015

Muscle Synergy Constraints Improve Prediction Of Knee Contact Force During Gait, Benjamin Fregly, Jonathan Walter, Allison Kinney, Scott Banks, Darryl D'Lima, Thor Besier, David Lloyd

Allison Kinney

Knowledge of patient-specific muscle and joint contact forces during activities of daily living could improve the treatment of movement-related disorders (e.g., osteoarthritis, stroke, cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s disease). Unfortunately, it is currently impossible to measure these quantities directly under common clinical conditions, and calculation of these quantities using computer models is limited by the redundant nature of human neural control (i.e., more muscles than theoretically necessary to actuate the available degrees of freedom in the skeleton). Walking is a particularly important task to understand, since loss of mobility is associated with increased morbidity and decreased quality of life. Though numerous musculoskeletal …


Evaluation Of Different Optimal Control Problem Formulations For Solving The Muscle Redundancy Problem, Friedl De Groote, Allison Kinney, Anil Rao, Benjamin Fregly Dec 2015

Evaluation Of Different Optimal Control Problem Formulations For Solving The Muscle Redundancy Problem, Friedl De Groote, Allison Kinney, Anil Rao, Benjamin Fregly

Allison Kinney

This study evaluates several possible optimal control problem formulations for solving the muscle redundancy problem with the goal of identifying the most efficient and robust formulation. One novel formulation involves the introduction of additional controls that equal the time derivative of the states, resulting in very simple dynamic equations. The nonlinear equations describing muscle dynamics are then imposed as algebraic constraints in their implicit form, simplifying their evaluation. By comparing different problem formulations for computing muscle controls that can reproduce inverse dynamic joint torques during gait, we demonstrate the efficiency and robustness of the proposed novel formulation.


Synergies Controls Improve Prediction Of Knee Contact Forces And Muscle Excitations During Gait, Benjamin Fregly, Jonathan Walter, Allison Kinney, Scott Banks, Darryl D'Lima, Thor Besier, David Lloyd Dec 2015

Synergies Controls Improve Prediction Of Knee Contact Forces And Muscle Excitations During Gait, Benjamin Fregly, Jonathan Walter, Allison Kinney, Scott Banks, Darryl D'Lima, Thor Besier, David Lloyd

Allison Kinney

This study investigates whether use of muscle excitation controls constructed from subjectspecific muscle synergy information can improve optimization prediction of knee contact forces and muscle excitations during walking. Muscle synergies quantify how a large number of experimental muscle electromyographic (EMG) signals can be reconstructed by linearly mixing a much smaller number of neural commands generated by the nervous system. Our hypothesis was that controlling all muscle excitations with a small set of experimentally calculated neural commands would improve prediction of knee contact forces and leg muscle excitations compared to using independently controlled muscle excitations.