Exosuit reduces energy needed to walk by 23%
by noreply@blogger.com (brian wang) from NextBigFuture.com on (#29REA)
A new study shows, that in test group of seven healthy wearers, they clearly saw that the more assistance provided to the ankle joints, the more energy the wearers could save with a maximum reduction of almost 23% compared to walking with the exosuit powered-off. This is the highest relative reduction in energy expenditure observed to date with a tethered exoskeleton or exosuit.
Wearers significantly adapted their gait with increasing levels of assistance. The changes were most significant at the ankle joint but also at the hip as the exosuit included straps coupling the assistance from the back of the lower legs to the front of the hip in a beneficial manner.
Science Robotics - Assistance magnitude versus metabolic cost reductions for a tethered multiarticular soft exosuit
Abstract
When defining requirements for any wearable robot for walking assistance, it is important to maximize the user's metabolic benefit resulting from the exosuit assistance while limiting the metabolic penalty of carrying the system's mass. Thus, the aim of this study was to isolate and characterize the relationship between assistance magnitude and the metabolic cost of walking while also examining changes to the wearer's underlying gait mechanics. The study was performed with a tethered multiarticular soft exosuit during normal walking, where assistance was directly applied at the ankle joint and indirectly at the hip due to a textile architecture. The exosuit controller was designed such that the delivered torque profile at the ankle joint approximated that of the biological torque during normal walking. Seven participants walked on a treadmill at 1.5 meters per second under one unpowered and four powered conditions, where the peak moment applied at the ankle joint was varied from about 10 to 38% of biological ankle moment (equivalent to an applied force of 18.7 to 75.0% of body weight). Results showed that, with increasing exosuit assistance, net metabolic rate continually decreased within the tested range. When maximum assistance was applied, the metabolic rate of walking was reduced by 22.83 3.17% relative to the powered-off condition (mean SEM).
Last year, Harvard's soft exosuit team proved that its wearable robot could lower energy expenditure in healthy people walking with a load on their back
Read more
Wearers significantly adapted their gait with increasing levels of assistance. The changes were most significant at the ankle joint but also at the hip as the exosuit included straps coupling the assistance from the back of the lower legs to the front of the hip in a beneficial manner.
Science Robotics - Assistance magnitude versus metabolic cost reductions for a tethered multiarticular soft exosuit
Abstract
When defining requirements for any wearable robot for walking assistance, it is important to maximize the user's metabolic benefit resulting from the exosuit assistance while limiting the metabolic penalty of carrying the system's mass. Thus, the aim of this study was to isolate and characterize the relationship between assistance magnitude and the metabolic cost of walking while also examining changes to the wearer's underlying gait mechanics. The study was performed with a tethered multiarticular soft exosuit during normal walking, where assistance was directly applied at the ankle joint and indirectly at the hip due to a textile architecture. The exosuit controller was designed such that the delivered torque profile at the ankle joint approximated that of the biological torque during normal walking. Seven participants walked on a treadmill at 1.5 meters per second under one unpowered and four powered conditions, where the peak moment applied at the ankle joint was varied from about 10 to 38% of biological ankle moment (equivalent to an applied force of 18.7 to 75.0% of body weight). Results showed that, with increasing exosuit assistance, net metabolic rate continually decreased within the tested range. When maximum assistance was applied, the metabolic rate of walking was reduced by 22.83 3.17% relative to the powered-off condition (mean SEM).
Last year, Harvard's soft exosuit team proved that its wearable robot could lower energy expenditure in healthy people walking with a load on their back
Read more