Exercise diagnostic system and method

In a muscle exercise and diagnostic system, a lever arm;

• means coupling said lever arm to a shaft for rotation with said shaft about a mechanical axis of rotation;
• means establishing a velocity demand signal;
• and a rotational velocity governor system coupled to said shaft for limiting the rotational velocity thereof;
• and control means for controlling said governor system in response to said anatomical velocity demand signal;
• said governor system comprising a rotary hydraulic actuator with a rotationally mounted shaft extending therethrough and carrying a rotating vane cooperating with a stationary vane on the interior of said actuator to define two complementarily variable volumetric chambers on opposite sides of said vanes and a pair of fluid ports each communicating with one of said chambers;
• a fluid control valve comprising at least a pair of fluid ports communicating with said fluid ports of said actuator, an internal valve spool for controlling the effective orifice size of said fluid ports and regulating the flow of fluid therebetween, and valve position drive means responsive to an input valve position control signal to control the position of said value spool;
• and said control means comprises angle measuring means for measuring the angular position of said lever arm and shaft and producing an analog angle signal corresponding thereto, velocity measuring means receiving said angle signal for computing the velocity of said lever arm and shaft and producing an analog velocity signal corresponding thereto, torque measuring means for measuring the value of torque exerted on said shaft and producing an analog torque signal corresponding thereto;
• analog to digital converter means for digitizing said analog velocity signal and said analog torque signal to corresponding digital velocity and torque signals corresponding thereto;
• digital computer means, including program means and input/output means, for receiving said digital signals and said velocity demand signal and computing a digital valve position command signal;
• and digital to analog converter means receiving said digital valve position command signal for producing a corresponding analog valve position command signal and supplying said signal to said valve position drive means;
• said program means including baseline correction routine means for analyzing said digital angle signals to determine when said lever arm is in a quiescent condition and thereupon computing baseline values of said digital velocity and torque signals from said analog velocity and torque signal;
• baseline correction routine means for correcting digital velocity and torque signals based on said computed baseline values thereof;
• a velocity demand correction routine for calculating the current system error based on the digital value of measured velocity and said input velocity demand signal and calculating a corrected velocity demand signal as a prearranged function of said calculated system error and said input velocity demand signal;
• a torque computation routine for calculating the absolute value of said digital torque signal;
• a torque factor routine for calculating a torque factor as a prearranged function of said absolute torque value;
• a valve position command routine for calculating a valve position command as a prearranged function of said corrected velocity demand signal and said torque factor;
• and a correction routine for converting said valve position command signal to a corrected valve position command signal based on looking up a corrected value in a stored table of correction values.

In a method for controlled resistance exercise:

• the steps of:
• mounting a shaft for rotation about a fixed axis;
• coupling a preselected point on a human body portion to said shaft through a rigid lever arm for enabling combined rotation of said lever arm about said fixed axis and said human body portion about an anatomic axis in the vicinity of said fixed axis with a coupling relation comprising a fixed tangential relation and a freely alterable radial relation between said preselected point and said shaft during said combined rotation;
• and
• limiting the maximum permitted rotational velocity of said shaft to a value predetermined in accordance with a preselected velocity control function.

In a method for controlling the maximum permitted shaft velocity of a velocity governing system comprising a rotary hydraulic actuator with a rotationally mounted shaft having a rotating vane carried thereon and cooperating with a stationary vane on the interior of said actuator to define two complementarily variable volumetric chambers on opposite sides of said vanes, and a pair of fluid ports each communicating with one of said chambers;

• a fluid control valve comprising at least a pair of fluid ports communicating with said fluid ports of said actuator, an internal valve spool for controlling the effective orifice size of said fluid ports and regulating the flow of fluid therebetween, and valve position drive means responsive to an input valve position control signal to control the position of said valve spool, the steps of:
• establishing a shaft velocity demand signal;
• measuring the actual torque on said shaft of said actuator;
• calculating a valve position command signal based on a predetermined functional combination of said demand signal and said measured actual torque;
• measuring and registering the instantaneous value of actual shaft velocity;
• calculating a current system error signal based on a predetermined functional combination of said measured actual shaft velocity and said shaft velocity demand signal;
• correcting said shaft velocity demand signal as a function of said calculated current system error;
• establishing a two dimensional array of correction signal data points, each data point corresponding to prearranged ranges of values of said shaft velocity demand signal and said measured actual torque signal and storing a velocity/torque correction signal value;
• addressing an active one of said data points based on the current measured torque value and the current value of the shaft velocity demand signal;
• reading the stored velocity/torque correction signal value stored at said active data point;
• and
• storing at said active data point a new velocity/torque correction signal value as a prearranged functional combination of the correction signal value read and the value of the current system error;
• and wherein said step of calculating a valve position command signal is performed on the basis of a predetermined functional combination of said shaft velocity demand signal, said measured torque signal and said read velocity/torque correction signal value.

In a method for controlled accommodating resistance exercise, the steps of:

• mounting a shaft for rotation about a fixed axis;
• coupling a preselected point on a human body portion to said shaft through a rigid lever arm for enabling combined rotation of said lever arm about said fixed axis and said human body portion about an anatomic axis in the vicinity of said fixed axis with a coupling relation comprising a fixed tangential relation and a freely alterable radial relation between said preselected point and said shaft during said combined rotation;
• registering an initial lever length comprising the distance from said preselected point on said body portion to said anatomical axis of rotation of said body portion when said anatomical axis is substantially aligned with said fixed axis;
• registering in at least a substantially continuous manner the distance between said preselected point and said fixed axis during said rotation;
• defining an anatomical velocity demand function;
• and
• limiting the instantaneous maximum permitted rotational velocity of said shaft means to a value which is determined in accordance with a prearranged functional combination of said anatomical velocity demand function, said registered initial lever length and said registered distance using a velocity governing system comprising a rotary hydraulic actuator with a rotationally mounted shaft having a rotating vane carried thereon and cooperating with a stationary vane on the interior of said actuator to define two complementarily variable volumetric chambers on opposite sides of said vanes;
• and a pair of fluid ports each communicating with one of said chambers;
• a fluid control valve comprising at least a pair of fluid ports communicating with said fluid ports of said actuator, an internal valve spool for controlling the effective orifice size of said fluid ports and regulating the flow of fluid therebetween, and valve position drive means responsive to an input valve position control signal to control the position of said value spool, said limiting step including the steps of:
• measuring the actual torque on said shaft of said actuator;
• measuring and registering the instantaneous value of actual shaft velocity;
• calculating a current system error signal based on a predetermined functional combination of said measured actual shaft velocity and said shaft velocity demand signal;
• correcting said shaft velocity demand signal as a function of said calculated current system error;
• establishing a two dimensional array of correction signal data points, each data point corresponding to prearranged ranges of values of said shaft velocity demand signal and said measured actual torque signal and storing a velocity/torque correction signal value;
• addressing an active one of said data points based on the current measured torque value and the current value of the shaft velocity demand signal;
• reading the stored velocity/torque correction signal value stored at said active data point;
• storing at said active data point a new velocity/torque correction signal value as a prearranged functional combination of the correction signal value read and the value of the current system error;
• and
• calculating a valve position command signal based on a predetermined functional combination of said anatomical velocity demand function, said registered initial lever length, said registered distance, said measured actual torque, and said velocity/torque correction signal value.