Affiliations: [a] Guangdong Provincial Key Lab of Robotics and Intelligent System, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China | [b] CAS Key Laboratory of Human-Machine Intelligence-Synergy Systems, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China | [c] Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Joint Laboratory of Human-Machine Intelligence-Synergy Systems, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Chunjie Chen, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. Email: cj.chen@siat.ac.cn.
Note: [1] Tao Fang and Wujing Cao contributed equally to this work.
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Population aging is now a universal trend. Many elderly persons can only conduct limited and short time walking because of age-related skeletal muscle decline of the lower limbs. The wearable device for walking assistance is beneficial to improve the life quality of the elderly. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to propose a soft exosuit for walking assistance of the elderly and verify its feasibility. METHODS: The wearable structure and control strategy were presented. The performance of the soft exosuit was tested by force tracking evaluation and metabolic cost test. RESULTS: The mean error of the measured and target peak force was 1.1%. The metabolic cost with assistance on while wearing the exosuit was reduced by 9.2% compared with that in locomotion assistance off. The reduction of assistance on was 7.1% compared with no exosuit. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed soft exosuit has the potential to improve the walking efficiency of the elderly.
Keywords: Soft exosuit, walking augment, hip assistance, lower limb exoskeleton
