Design of mechanism for assisting walking motion driven by user's own arm

Abstract

In recent years, there are many devices developed to assist walking with the aging society. However, these devices driven by electric motors are so expensive that it is difficult to spread the hands of many people. In order to spread many people in need of assist walking, development of the device with simple structure and inexpensive is demanded. So, we develop the walking assist device targeted those who have become difficult to walk by hindered of the legs in the elderly or injury. The device of this study using the linkage assists the walking to lead the user's legs. The electronic control is unnecessary by the driving force which is movement of the user's arms. Therefore, the user can walk on the basis of their intention. We evaluate assistance properties of the device by confirming the analysis and experimental. In this paper, we verify the construction and properties of the device.