Abstract Various assistive systems for locomotion deficiencies using external power and control are currently under investigation. External joint control may be solved by extending approaches available in process control to the requirements of rehabilitation. Implementation of control laws thus derived leads ultimately to real-time processing of numerical data which is not always the best way to solve man-machine interaction in bioengineering. A different approach is presented here which is based on external sensory inputs reproducing certain aspects of exteroceptive and proprioceptive feedback. Sensory inputs of this kind are used to recognize patterns involved in human locomotion by solving logical (boolean) expressions. Identified patterns are directly matched to actuator states of respective joints. Non-numerical locomotion control algorithms are presented and rehabilitation applications described.
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