Smart power suit with variable stiffness mechanism

Wearable robots, especially power suits to enhance human activity are one of most interesting topics. This study aims to develop a power suit installing a variable stiffness mechanism. In a previous study, we showed that the relation between impedance parameters of power suits and human performance, and verified the effectiveness of self impedance matching method using soft computing. In this paper, we conduct fundamental experiments in order to design a variable stiffness mechanism, which can tune the stiffness of joint mechanically. Experimental results show the effectiveness of variable stiffness for improving human performance and reducting muscle fatigue. Moreover, we try to design the variable stiffness mechanism, and to verify the effectiveness by simulation.