New soft ankle exoskeleton
Interview with Xiaochen Zhang
We took a talk with Xiaochen Zhang, PhD-student at the research group KTH Moveability on his work at Promobilia Moveability Lab. Xiaochen Zhang just presented his licentiate thesis at KTH.
Hi Xiaochen Zhang! What is your licentiate thesis about?
"It introduces the design of a new soft ankle exoskeleton that can assist both drop foot and excessive inversion. It also introduces a novel multi-objective Human-in-the-Loop optimization protocol aiming to maximize the different assistive effects simultaneously."
Link to thesis here . (Design and Control Parameter Optimization of Soft Ankle Exoskeleton for People with Dropfoot and Excessive Inversion).
What benefits and contribution to health, healthcare and people with motor disability could your research add to?
"Our exoskeleton is designed to assist people with drop foot caused by stroke or other neurological injuries. We are hopeful that it could significantly improve their safety while walking by reducing the risk of tripping and falling and then enhance their mobility and quality of life."
What is the next step for you now?
"The next step for me is to defend my PhD degree, probably this October or November. Then, I will try to stay in academia, probably as a postdoc, and continue doing similar things in the same field."
Could you fill us in on your background?
"Before I came to Sweden, I did work related to Mechanical Engineering at Jilin University, Changchun, China. This University is famous for vehicle engineering, and the city is also, sometimes called ‘the Detroit of China’. The topic of my master’s project is to design and optimize the Hydro-pneumatic suspension system for heavy vehicles."