Project Grant 2233164

This National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant award under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) program, with an award amount of $550,000, provides funding for a research project titled "FRR: A NEW STRATEGY FOR TASK-AGNOSTIC CONTROL OF ROBOTIC EXOSKELETONS BY ESTIMATING UNDERLYING BIOLOGICAL EFFORT USING DEEP LEARNING." The project aims to advance exoskeleton technology by developing AI-based approaches to enable generalization of exoskeleton control across diverse everyday tasks, including both cyclic walking and discrete actions. The research will collect natural human data while wearing exoskeletons and create AI systems to recognize key internal human states, such as lower limb joint efforts. This will result in a control system that can be extended to new users and novel lower limb tasks, with the potential to improve community mobility, independence, and quality of life for individuals with physically demanding jobs or lower limb impairments. The project will be conducted by the Georgia Tech Research Corporation, a non-profit research organization and state-controlled institution of higher education, over a 4-year period from October 2023 to September 2027.