Abstract
In Japan, the number of aged people is rapidly increasing. It is expected that elderly patients who need gait training will increase. In hospitals, walking support robots are needed that can safely support the gait training. We have proposed a walking support robot equipped with two velocity-based safety devices and experimentally examined the usefulness of the velocity-based safety devices. This paper proposes a new walking support robot equipped with not only two velocity-based safety devices but also a contact force-based safety device. These safety devices consist of only mechanical components without actuators, controllers, or batteries. Firstly, we explain the walking support robot proposed in this paper. Secondly, we show the developed walking support robot. Finally, we verify the effectiveness of the contact force-based safety device by experiments.
