Human Robot Systems Lab

HRSL/UMILL Adjustable Surface Stiffness Treadmill (AdjuSST)

The HRSL/UMILL Adjustable Surface Stiffness Treadmill (AdjuSST) is a collaboration between the Human Robot Systems Lab and the UMass Integrative Locomotion Lab led by Wouter Hoogkamer. This device is a treadmill with an actively controlled surface stiffness, enabling us to study the effect of varying foot-ground interaction dynamics on gait behavior and adaptation. The device is currently under construction to serve as a split-belt treadmill which varies ground stiffness under only one foot while the other foot walks on solid ground. This will allow us to study the effect of asymmetric perturbations on foot-ground interaction dynamics with the potential application of correcting asymmetries in populations with asymmetric gait deficiencies (e.g. hemiparetic stroke).

In addition to the researchers listed below, two senior capstone design teams (F21 Team 1509 and F21/S22 Team 9701) contributed to the design and fabrication of this treadmill.

This project is funded by NIH-1R21EB033450 (co-PIs: Huber and Hoogkamer) and a UMass Advance Collaborative Research Award (co-PIs: Huber and Hoogkamer).

Relevant Publications

Price, M., Locurto, D., Abdikadirova, B., Huber, M. E., & Hoogkamer, W. (2024). AdjuSST: an adjustable surface stiffness treadmill. bioRxiv, 2024-03.

Contributing Researchers

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Meghan E. Huber
Assistant Professor, MIE
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Wouter Hoogkamer
Assistant Professor, Kinesiology
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Mark Price
Postdoctoral Researcher, MIE and Kinesiology
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Dominic Locurto
Alumni Masters Student, MIE
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Banu Abdikadirova
PhD Candidate, MIE
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Kyle O'Connell
Alumni Masters Student, MIE
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Robert Bennett
Alumni Undergraduate Student, MIE