Abstract
The purpose of this study is to develop a walking training system for elderly people. This system consists of three components: a wearable walking assist device, a high-performance shoes, and an active walker. In this study, a wearable walking assist device to support them is developed. Their walking speed and step can be improved by supporting a flexing action of hip joint. The device is required to have a lightweight, simple structure, and portability. Therefore a pneumatic rubber artificial muscle which has a lightweight and high power-weight ratio is used as an actuator. Further, CO2 gas cartridge tank is used to realize a portability instead of air compressor as air pressure source. In the experiment, myogenic potential is measured when subject wearing the wearable walking assist device walks on a treadmill. The number subject is five students (healthy adult males). From some experimental results with respect to both walking speed and step, similar waveforms are obtained. When the assist function is on state, the average maximum value of myogenic potential decreases as compared with turned off state. In other words, it became clear that this device can perform similar walking even with small muscular strength. Therefore, it can be said that the wearable walking assist device has a walking assistance function. In the future, we will actually experiment with the elderly people, and improve with the opinions of them. In this paper, descriptions on the development of high-value-added walking training system, the structure of the wearable walking assist device, and experimental results and their evaluation are described.
