Robotic Wear with Pneumatic Actuators to Assist/Improve Sideways Balance During Walking: Part 1—Prototype Development

Welfare assistive devices and robotic devices have been developed to assist the elderly and people/individuals with disabilities in walking. For the elderly and people with disabilities to achieve stable walking, the development of wearable robots to support the shift of the center of mass to the left and right during walking is important. Therefore, in this study, we developed a wearable robot to improve walking function through a haptic presentation. The wearable robot is equipped with a pneumatic actuator that enables haptic presentation and an inertial measurement unit (IMU) for estimating walking events. Walking support in real-time is hypothesized to be possible through this wearable robot. We verified the effectiveness of haptic presentation and developed a walking-event estimation algorithm using the IMU. From the experimental results, left and right center of pressure (CoP) changes were confirmed to be possible through haptic presentation; moreover, walking events can be estimated by the IMU attached to the waist.