Concept design of hybrid-actuated lower limb exoskeleton to reduce the metabolic cost of walking with heavy loads

Qiaoling Meng; Bolei Kong; Qingxin Zeng; Cuizhi Fei; Hongliu Yu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0282800

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionNovember 26, 2022
15 Feb 2023 Decision Letter - Zhan Li, Editor PONE-D-22-32591Concept Design of Hybrid-Actuated Lower Limb Exoskeleton to Reduce the Metabolic Cost of Walking with Heavy LoadsPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Yu, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Apr 01 2023 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Please note that PLOS ONE has specific guidelines on code sharing for submissions in which author-generated code underpins the findings in the manuscript. In these cases, all author-generated code must be made available without restrictions upon publication of the work. Please review our guidelines at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/materials-and-software-sharing#loc-sharing-code and ensure that your code is shared in a way that follows best practice and facilitates reproducibility and reuse. Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. 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Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: This paper proposed a design method for a hybrid-actuated lower limb exoskeleton to reduce the metabolic cost of walking. Three human-machine coupling models with passive springs were simulated and analyzed based on the method of simulation muscle driving. Then, this paper also proposed a control strategy based on the metabolic cost models for hybrid-actuated exoskeletons. The simulated experiments showed that the average metabolic cost decreased by 7.2% with both spring and motor. The work is interesting. The proposed method provides a new solution to improve lower limb exoskeletons. Overall, the paper is well organized and its presentation is good. However, some minor issues still need to be improved. 1. The experiment results could be added in the abstract to obtain complete information for the readers. 2. The captions of figures in this paper are not very clear to the readers. The reviewer suggests that the authors could provide more information about the figures. For instance, Figure 2 (a),(b), and (c) meanings could be added in the caption. Therefore, the reviewer suggests that the manuscript can be accepted after minor revision. Reviewer #2: This paper proposes the conceptual design method for a hybrid-actuated lower limb exoskeleton based on energy consumption simulation. The work is interesting. The content is meaningful. Minor concerns includes: (1) The quality of figures 1-2 should be improved. (2) The abscissa of figure 5(a), 6 and 10(a) should be gait cycle instead of time. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No ******** [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282800.r001
Revision 1
21 Feb 2023 Author Response Reviewer #1: This paper proposed a design method for a hybrid-actuated lower limb exoskeleton to reduce the metabolic cost of walking. Three human-machine coupling models with passive springs were simulated and analyzed based on the method of simulation muscle driving. Then, this paper also proposed a control strategy based on the metabolic cost models for hybrid-actuated exoskeletons. The simulated experiments showed that the average metabolic cost decreased by 7.2% with both spring and motor. The work is interesting. The proposed method provides a new solution to improve lower limb exoskeletons. Overall, the paper is well organized and its presentation is good. However, some minor issues still need to be improved. Comments: 1. The experiment results could be added in the abstract to obtain complete information for the readers. Responses: Thank you very much for your careful comments. We have added the experimental results in the abstract of the article. Please check out the file (b) that the specific changes with highlight. Comments 2. The captions of figures in this paper are not very clear to the readers. The reviewer suggests that the authors could provide more information about the figures. For instance, Figure 2 (a),(b), and (c) meanings could be added in the caption. Responses: Thank you very much for your careful comments. We have revised and supplemented the title of all the figures in the article. Please check out the file (b) that the specific changes of the figures title are highlighted. Reviewer #2: This paper proposes the conceptual design method for a hybrid-actuated lower limb exoskeleton based on energy consumption simulation. The work is interesting. The content is meaningful. Minor concerns includes: Comments: (1) The quality of figures 1-2 should be improved. Responses: Thank you very much for your careful comments. We have optimized the definition of Figure 1 and Figure 2. Please check ‘Fig 1.tif’ and ‘Fig 2.tif’ in folder (d). Comments: (2) The abscissa of figure 5(a), 6 and 10(a) should be gait cycle instead of time. Responses: Thank you very much for your careful comments. We modify the abscissa in Figure 5 (a), Figure 6 and Figure 10 (a) to the gait period. Please check ‘Fig 5.tif’, ‘Fig 6.tif’and ‘Fig 10.tif’ in folder (d). Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: (a)Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282800.r002
23 Feb 2023 Decision Letter - Zhan Li, Editor Concept Design of Hybrid-Actuated Lower Limb Exoskeleton to Reduce the Metabolic Cost of Walking with Heavy Loads. PONE-D-22-32591R1 Dear Dr. Yu, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Zhan Li, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0282800.r003

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