Robotic Orthosis Lokomat: A Rehabilitation and Research Tool

The aim of this article is to introduce the robotic orthosis Lokomat, developed to automate treadmill training rehabilitation of locomotion for spinal cord injured and stroke patients, to the Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) and Neuromodulation research communities, and to report on our newly conducted research. We first illustrate the primary use of Lokomat in rehabilitation and focus on control aspects and algorithms associated with robotic rehabilitation of locomotion. Then we describe two applications where the Lokomat was used as a research tool. The first application is closed-loop control of the FES-induced shank movement and the second is the development of a neural network model of the spinal locomotor centers. This model was used to derive a neural locomotion controller for the Lokomat.