A PAWL for Enhancing Strength and Endurance during Walking Using Interaction Force and Dynamical Information

Abstract

A power assist walking leg is designed for enhancing strength and endurance during walking, it can be also applied to one whose legs are injured or who has difficulty in walking because of aging, paralysis and amputation. In this paper, we intend to introduce a concept of power assist walking support system and its fundamental control strategy using the information of human-robot interaction force. The whole system must be simple for user, i.e. the user can manipulate the walking support system easily. In order to make the system work smoothly, it must understand the user's intent through human-robot interaction force and the joint angle. Therefore, we propose tentatively a strategy using human-robot interaction force between the assist walking exoskeleton and human legs. Correlative experimental results show the effectiveness of the control strategies.