• Assistive robotics
• gait assistance
• myoelectric control

Ageing is one of the greatest social and economic challenges of the 21st century for industrialized societies, which are characterized by lower birth rate and higher life expectancy. Therefore, many research teams have focused their studies in designing wearable robotic devices for lower limb rehabilitation and assistance. Also, different control strategies have been investigated to develop new control algorithms for gait assistance. Our study will be focused on developing and validating a proportional myoelectric control algorithm that allows controlling an active pelvis orthosis; proportional EMG-based control of exoskeletons and active orthosis has been widely investigated by many research teams. In this work, a novel control strategy for hip flexion assistance will be proposed, based on Gastrocnemius EMG signal. The basic idea was to provide an assistive torque to the hip joint that is proportional to the EMG signal of a muscle that is not physically connected to that joint. To develop our control strategy we integrated different kind of systems, such as sensorized insoles, robotic exoskeleton and biosignals. This work had two main objectives: demonstrate that with our algorithm is possible to control an exoskeleton and that is also possible to reduce the activation of some muscles, which are involved in gait. Experimental sessions were also carried out to demonstrate the feasibility of the developed assistive strategy.