Official websites use .gov

A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS

A lock ( 🔒 ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Need Help

Physiologically-inspired exoskeleton controller to enhance human balance

Award Number: F32HD112128
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: FELLOWSHIP/SCHOLARSHIP/STUDENT LOANS
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 11/01/2024
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 10/31/2027

Group Awards By:

View Award Description

Physiologically-inspired exoskeleton controller to enhance human balance - PROJECT SUMMARY Reducing the prevalence and burden of falls and fall-related injuries is a significant public health concern. Lower limb robotic exoskeletons have the potential to augment human balance and prevent falls. However, current exoskeletons are commonly designed to improve walking, not reduce the risk of falling. For the potential of exoskeletons for enhancing human balance to be realized, they must provide appropriate assistance across the diverse range of conditions that elicit falls. However, this remains an open challenge. This proposal uses physiological inspiration to develop a generalizable framework for symbiotic exoskeleton control that enhances balance during standing and walking. Reactive balance control requires a coordinated response at both the hip and ankle. However, current exoskeletons are commonly single-joint exoskeletons, and use local control principles that ignore the coordinated response. To overcome this limitation, I will leverage Dr. Ting's expertise in reactive balance control that demonstrates that the coordinated multi- joint reactive balancing response is mediated by global feedback of center of mass (CoM) kinematics rather than local feedback from individual joints. This global CoM feedback strategy explains the physiological coordinated multi-joint balancing response to postural perturbations of varying directions and magnitudes during both standing and walking. Thus, using a global CoM feedback model to control a multi-joint exoskeleton has the potential to greatly simplify its control and generalize across different tasks and perturbation events. I will test this concept in Aims 1 & 2 using state-of-the-art multi- joint exoskeleton systems currently used in Dr. Sawicki and Young's laboratories. Specifically, I will evaluate the efficacy of a global CoM controller at enhancing reactive balance control during both standing and walking compared to a local joint controller. Lastly, to facilitate the future usage of our novel balance-augmenting exoskeleton framework outside the laboratory, in Aim 3, I will use data from a wearable sensor suite worn by the participant to estimate CoM kinematics—the input into the global CoM controller—in real-time, rather than relying on high-fidelity, lab-based measures. To achieve this, I will leverage recent advances in deep learning by Dr. Young that enable highly accurate real-time estimates of physiological states across a range of walking conditions that generalize to unseen gait conditions from a few worn sensors. Together, this work provides the framework for developing exoskeletons aimed at improving balance and reducing the risk of falling in high-risk individuals, including older adults, those with musculoskeletal injuries, or stroke survivors.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2026 ( Subtotal = $84,580 )
2026	2026	EMORY UNIVERSITY	201 DOWMAN DR NE	ATLANTA	GA	30322	DEKALB	USA	Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research	000	2	12/18/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$83,224
2026	2026	EMORY UNIVERSITY	201 DOWMAN DR NE	ATLANTA	GA	30322	DEKALB	USA	Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research	001	2	4/3/2026	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$1,356
														Subtotal = $84,580

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $79,756 )
2024	2024	EMORY UNIVERSITY	201 DOWMAN DR NE	ATLANTA	GA	30322	DEKALB	USA	Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research	000	1	8/21/2024	NEW	$79,756
														Subtotal = $79,756

Grand Total All Awards = $164,336

Top

All Categories

About

Search

Reports

Data Submission

Award Information

Physiologically-inspired exoskeleton controller to enhance human balance

Award Number: F32HD112128

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF CHILD HEALTH AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: FELLOWSHIP/SCHOLARSHIP/STUDENT LOANS

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 11/01/2024

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 10/31/2027

Federal Websites

Department of Health & Human Services

HHS Operating Divisions

HHS Staff Divisions

Download A Document Viewer