OpenSim Webinar: Understanding How Exoskeletons Affect Muscle-tendon Mechanics During Walking

Ankle exoskeletons have the potential to improve mobility in able-bodied individuals and restore mobility to those with gait impairments. However, it is challenging to predict the interactions of exoskeletons with the highly complex human musculoskeletal system. Musculoskeletal simulations provide a unique opportunity for studying how muscle-level mechanics and energetics change when operating in parallel with an assistive device.

In this webinar, Rachel Jackson previously from Carnegie Mellon University (and now at Stanford University) discusses how she used OpenSim to perform electromyography-driven simulations of a musculoskeletal model to obtain estimates of lower-limb muscle-tendon mechanics during walking with exoskeleton-applied torque. She also discusses how she fed the results from these simulations into a model of individual muscle energy expenditure to obtain estimates of muscle-level energetics. Throughout the webinar, she highlights important strategies used to improve confidence in the simulation results.

Note: This is a re-upload of an earlier uploaded video of the same name. It corrects the sound issues in the original video.