Abstract
A stand alone wearable power assist suit we developed gives nurses the extra muscle they need to lift their patients and avoid back injuries. The suit consists of shoulders, arms, back, waist, hip and legs units to be fitted on the nurse's body. The arms, waist, hip and legs have newly developed rotary actuators consisting of air bags driven directly by micro air pumps supplied by portable batteries. But air bags can produce the force only at the expansion, so a linkwork is needed to waist and hip joints, and the linkwork projects into the back. For realizing the suit available in the narrow working space, air cylinders should be adopted, but it needs a high pressure air compressor. Therefore, it cannot become wearable suit, but can become practical as a power assist suit in the construction site and the factory equipped with an air pressure supply line. This paper reports the development status of a power assist suit utilizing air cylinder.
