Effects of exoskeletal stiffness in parallel with the knee on the motion of the human body center of mass during walking

In this paper we investigate effects of the mass, kinematic constraints imposed by the joint, and assistance provided by the spring of a pair of quasi-passive knee exoskeletons on the motion of the human body center of mass during normal walking. The exoskeletons implement a spring in parallel with the knee joint in the weight acceptance phase of gait, and allow free rotation during all other phases. We begin with a brief explanation of the exoskeleton design, which employs a friction-based latching mechanism to engage/disengage a spring in parallel with the knee. Additionally, a pair of joint-less mass replicas of the exoskeletons were used to separately investigate the effects of the exoskeleton added mass and articulation. It was found that the exoskeleton mass is the main contributor to the changes in the motion of the center of mass, with more pronounced fluctuations of the center of mass in the mediolateral direction, while the exoskeleton joint and spring had negligible effects over and above those of the mass. Additionally, the exoskeleton mass and assistance conditions respectively resulted in a non-significant increase and a non-significant decrease in the total mechanical work of the body.