WEARABLE MASTER-SLAVE TRANING DEVICE FOR LOWER LIMB CONSTRUCTED WITH PNEUMATIC RUBBER ARTIFICIAL MUSCLES

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop a wearable master-slave lower limb training device for a trainer and a trainee. The developed device is constructed with McKibben type rubber artificial muscles and an appliance, a torque sensor. In addition, to prevent applying an excessive torque to the trainee, a reaction torque from the trainee can be transmitted to the trainer by a bilateral type master-slave control system. In this paper, the structure of the developed device is discussed, and then the validity of the proposed device is evaluated from the experiments assumed a training.