Design Concepts for Human Walking and Sitting Wearable Exoskeletons

Abstract

The paper deals with technical solutions for human walking and sitting balanced portable exoskeletons, in which the gravity compensation is carried out via cylindrical compression springs mounted on a slider mechanism. The proposed devices provide easy switching operation modes and can be used in both assisting of the human musculoskeletal system and in the physiotherapy. The performed analysis of developed devices has revealed their advantages: compactness, adjustability, balance, universality and also some drawbacks: the device compactness entails limitations on balancing capabilities, allowing exact static balancing of the human legs during walking, but only partial balancing of the body during sitting. Features of the design or the adjusting mechanism require considerable effort by the user to switch balancing modes, elimination of which requires an increase of spring’s stiffness coefficients. Compared with the previous ones, the proposed solution does not require a high spring stiffness to balance the system. The achieved main advantages of the device are universality and adjustability, the ability to provide dosing loads and ranges of angular displacements, and, consequently, improved efficiency in human physiotherapy.