Walking support by wearable system based on the spring-mass model

Walking support systems have been developed and various support methods have been proposed for supporting the motion of the elderly and physically disabled. In this research, we propose a walking support method based on the spring-mass model. Although the spring-mass model is very simple, the human motion during the walking is reproduced on the computer simulation using this model. In the stance phase, we support the user´s leg muscle compensating a part of the force applied to the upper body by the stance leg with the wearable-type walking support system. In the swing phase, we consider supporting the leg motion of the user using the trajectory following method based on the impedance control. The proposed method is applied to the wearable walking helper, and experimental results illustrate the validity for healthy subjects.