Development of walking assist equipment with pneumatic cylinder

We have developed the human walking assist system for the people who have handicap of are injured. This system is composed by a pair of orthosis actuated by the pneumatic liner cylinders and a pair of shoe having a weight sensor. The reason why we decide to use the pneumatic actuators is that the pneumatic flexible characteristic caused by air compliance is soft for human and also fits for environment. This assist system supports the lift of legs and stretch of knees when the human walks on ground or stairs. The weight sensor attached in shoes measures the weight of user at the thernar and the heel. By using the data, the walking states, i.e., walk on ground, climb, and decend the stairs, are discriminated. However, only with this weight sensor, there is a limitation to recognize the walk states. So we make the new orthosis which have an additional inclination sensor to lead an angle of a thigh into the controller for an index of new discrimination.