I led the design and fabrication of an adjustable surface stiffness treadmill at UMass Amherst. This treadmill is designed to deflect vertically under load using a flexible cantilever beam suspension. We can adjust the vertical stiffness in real-time during walking by changing the effective length of the cantilever beam with a servo-controlled set of rollers. The variable stiffness treadmill has a narrow belt, located next to a rigid treadmill, allowing it to be used as a dual-belt treadmill with asymmetric ground stiffness.

We will use this treadmill to study locomotor adaptation to ground stiffness perturbations, and eventually investigate its effect on correcting weight-bearing asymmetry for stroke rehabilitation.