Empowering Augmented Mobility Of The Aging Population Using Computational Musculoskeletal Simulation

Nearly 6 million elderly people nationwide, half of the aging population size, are physically inactive, with the consequence of ill-health conditions and decreased mobilities. The associated demand and supply of physical support care for the aging population have cost £5.3 million a year. Empowering mobility enables the aging population to preserve their physical fitness and promote health-related quality of life. Assistive robots have shown great potential for combating the mobility challenges experienced by the aging population. However, there are not currently unified consensuses about targeted joints and assistive strategies for assisting the elderly walking. Moreover, assistive robots fail to give direct clues on the effects of the user's efforts and energy changes, which renders experimental evaluations less informative in the design and evaluation.

The project will develop a computational simulation platform to evaluate the elderly walking with assistive robots and provide quantitative scientific evidence for optimal designs and customized assistive strategies. The proposed platform will simulate the elderly walking with assistive robots in a virtual environment by translating personalised characteristics of the aging population and models of assistive robots from the real world into digital forms. By incorporating real-world walking scenarios, engineering can exploit changes in muscular efforts and energy consumption to identify optimal robot design and customize assistive strategies. The proposed simulation platform provides a new solution to design and evaluate assistive robots for the elderly walking in an effective manner. It ultimately helps the aging population maintain mobility and increases healthy life expectancy.