IWAMOTO Kentaro, HASE Kazunori, TAKEHARA Shoichiro
Mechanical Engineering Congress, Japan, 2011 "J102012-1"-"J102012-4", Sep 11, 2011
Many of past walking assist devices are developed based on a general walking style whose basic principle is in the flexion and the extension of the knee and the hip joint. But in Japan, a NANBA which is a kind of walking style is studied, and in Europe and America, a theory of the Spinal Engine was proposed in 80's. These studies paid attention to the relation between the trunk motion and the walking. So in this study, we assume that the basic principle of walking is in the lateroflexion and the rotation of the trunk and the waist. The walking assist device which we are developing adopts a walking style which combines right and left swinging of the foot and rotation of the waist. To develop the walking assist device, we made a walking measurement to make an index, a mechanism design with mechanical analysis software, and detailed design. At the walking measurement, rotation angle of waist and abduction angle of hip joint are gotten. At the mechanism design, four bar linkage to assist abduction of the foot and wire mechanism to assist rotation of the waist were adopted. At detailed design, the size, weight and position of the mechanism were considered. In future, we will make a prototype to confirm the motion and improve the system.