Structure and Control of a Variable Stiffness Gel Spats for Walking Assistance

在之前的研究中，我们利用聚氯乙烯凝胶开发了一种伸缩致动器。并对PVC凝胶作动器的特性进行了研究。研究发现，随着外加直流电场的变化，PVC凝胶致动器的刚度有明显的变化。在这项研究中，我们设计了一种新的可变刚度的助行器，将可变刚度PVC凝胶驱动器与常用的助行器结合在一起。摩擦片的硬度随电场的开启和关闭而变化。我们认为，在行走过程中，通过抑制和释放不同刚度的身体运动，可以起到辅助行走的作用。我们进行了实验来评估凝胶的有效性。研究发现，在佩戴可变刚度凝胶垫时，行走时股直肌的IEMG和%MVC均有所下降。这表明本研究设计的凝胶护垫对行走辅助是有效的。

We have developed an expansion and contraction actuator by using the PVC gel in the previous study. And we investigated the characteristics of the PVC gel actuator. We found that the stiffness of the PVC gel actuator changes noticeably with the variation of the applied DC field. In this study, we designed a new variable stiffness spats for walking assistance by incorporating the variable stiffness PVC gel actuator with the generally used spats. The stiffness of the spats is variable with the electric field on and off. We think that the spats can assist the walking by restraining and releasing the body motion with different stiffness during the walking. And we conducted experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of the gel spats. It was found that both the IEMG and %MVC of the rectus femoris muscle decreased during the walking when wearing the variable stiffness gel spats. It indicated that the gel spats designed in this study was effective for the walking assistance.