Mechanical effects of wire assist suit on human walking during load-carrying

Abstract

We estimated the mechanical effects of wire assist suit on load-carrying. The wire assist device is a soft exosuit with four independently controllable actuators per assisted joint, with the wires crossed over each other at the front and rear. In this study, we used this assist suit to assist hip extension in stance phase during load-carrying. To estimate mechanical effects on hip moment, we made assist suit model in virtual ergonomic assessment system with human model and solved inverse kinematics. Additionally, we investigated on kinematic parameters to estimate the effects of load-carrying and assist suit on human walking. As a result, the assist suit decreased the hip extension moment in stance phase and the angular impulse during extension torque exertion by 25% compared to load-carrying with no assist device. From a kinematic point of view, the assist suit decreased the step length and the ratio of swing phase during load-carrying.