Development of wearable lower limb rehabilitation system composed of passive elements

在本研究中，为了建立下肢重度障碍患者可以在没有护理人员支持的情况下自行进行日常生活中常见活动的康复环境，我们尝试开发了一些完全由弹簧、阻尼器等被动元件组成的新型可穿戴康复装置。首先，我们构建了一种可穿戴的重力补偿装置，该装置可以产生较大的辅助力来补偿患者在任意姿势下的体重，并构建了一种新的机械系统，该系统可以在髋关节周围产生所需的阻抗特性来稳定站立姿势。此外，通过引入基于橡胶的新型重力补偿机构来减小设备的尺寸和重量，开发了一种补偿患者体重的步行支撑系统和轮椅，通过支撑患者的体重使座椅高度的变化变得容易。

In this study, to establish the rehabilitation environment where the patient with heavy disorder on the lower limbs can perform the common activities of daily life by himself without support from the caregiver, we tried to develop some new wearable rehabilitation devices wholly composed of the passive elements such as springs and dampers. At first, we constructed a wearable gravity compensation device which can generate the large assistant forces to compensate the weight of patients in arbitrary posture and a new mechanical system which can generate the desired impedance characteristic around the hip to stabilize the standing posture. In addition, by introducing the rubber based new gravity compensation mechanisms to reduce the size and weight of devices, a walking support system which compensate the weight of patients and the wheel chair which makes the change of the seating height easy by supporting the weight of patients were developed.