Development of pneumatically assist walking system

We have developed a pneumatic assistance system for a human walker, who has a handicap or damage. The assistance system supports the human leg force by using pneumatic linear actuators when he desires to stretch his knee. The supportable angles of knee are large enough and the system can be widely used in the range of walking on ground or up/down stairs. This system consists of two outfits of each leg actuated by pneumatic linear cylinder and a pair of shoes having the weight sensors on the sole. When the human tries to walk, the force change is detected by sensors on shoes and the feature of signal forms in the appropriate conditions, i.e. walking on the ground or up/down the stairs are used to decide the assist timing of each assist control mode. The usefulness of this system is evaluated by the power reducing factor of human and his impression for usage.