Erick H Nuñez's
Portfolio

Name: Erick H Nuñez

Location: Bloomfield, NJ

Hobbies: Board Games, Martial Arts

Lower Extremity Foot and Ankle Powered Exoskeleton

Designed and manufactured a 2 degree of freedom foot and ankle powered system which would provide a lower extremity exoskeleton with the ability to balance and ambulate more like a bioped. Robotic system provided dorsi/plantar flexion and inversion/eversion and has an intergrated force plate to detect center of pressure. System is driven by 2 posteriorly mounted custom linear actuators which control the it differentially.

Publications

• 2-DoF ankle-foot system: Implementation of balance for lower extremity exoskeletons
• Research and development of new generation robotic exoskeleton for over ground walking in individuals with mobility disorders (Novel design and control)
• Modeling and Validation of a Novel Robotic Lower Extremity Exoskeleton for Neurorehabilitation

Upper Extremity Robotic Arm Support

Designed and manufactured a 3 degree of freedom robotic arm support. Support gets mounted to the back of a seat and attaches to a user's wrist at the end effector. The system is backdriveable so in case of powerloss the user an safely move it. Robotic arm support is controlled from a microcontroller and run an Admittance control loop which interfaces with Matlab. Code is available on Github.

Gait Speed Estimation Algorithms

Multiple algorithms were developed and tested in Matlab which took subject data from accelerometers placed on their ankles and hips. The purpose of the project was to develop a protocol for clinicians to be able to quickly and inexpensively measure a patient's walking speed. The final algorithm proposed isolated subjects' midstance, toe-off, heel-strike and midswings to present an average step profile. Matlab code is available on Github.

Publications

• Comparing different methods of gait speed estimation using wearable sensors in individuals with varying levels of mobility impairments