Development of passive wearable walking support system based on brake control

In this paper, we introduce a passive wearable walking support system based on brake control referred to as ldquopassive wearable walking helperrdquo. According to the analysis of the walking of the human being, the knee joint has to support his/her weight during the walking, and the joint moment applied around the knee joint is large for supporting the weight. Consequently, in this paper, we pay attention to the support of the knee joint in walking, and develop a Passive Wearable Walking Helper which could support the weight of the user during the walking based on the brake control. In the control method, we derive the support moment for the knee joint by calculated human model and experiments using the developed system illustrate the validity of the passive support device and its control method.