Abstract
Japan is rapidly aging. It is expected that elderly patients who need gait training will increase. We have developed a passive-type walking support machine equipped with a lift device which provides a patient with partial body weight support and prevents the patient from falling down. In this paper, we propose a new walking support system which consists of the lift device and a treadmill. The treadmill has a safety device. The safety device is controlled by a motor and prevents the patient from falling down, when the controller of the walking support system works. Furthermore, the safety device can stop the belt of the treadmill if the safety device detects an unexpected velocity of the belt under breaking down of the controller. The effectiveness of the treadmill with the safety device is verified by experiments.
