Design of Walking Rehabilitation Device Using Planar Link Mechanism and Pneumatic Rubber Artificial Muscle

Keeping a walking ability is very important to improve the QOL, for feasible self-reliance in life and livelihoods. Rehabilitation of medical and welfare services are required to solve this problem, but it will be concerned to be difficult to deal with this problem due to a shortage of human resources and an increase in the number of elderly people. Therefore, there is a need to develop a walking rehabilitation device that can be operated by user’s self, considering user’s own physical condition. In this study, rehabilitation devices using the link mechanisms with one degree-of-freedom have been proposed for a potentially lower cost. In the case of using that device to pedal with the foots, the leg movements and the walking trajectory of the foot created based on the walking data are reproduced using a link mechanism to acquire walking ability of interlocking movement of three leg joints. The device can be used without an external power source and a control system, but the drivability has been problem due to the limit positions. Therefore, for the purpose of improving the drivability, a pneumatic rubber artificial muscle is used as an actuator to assist the operation of the mechanism. The reason of adopting a pneumatic rubber artificial muscle as an auxiliary unit is that it has an affinity for human. A trail experimental device is made to evaluate the reproducing walking motion and whether the characteristics of the artificial muscle, such as flexibility and contractile motion, are suitable for walking rehabilitation equipment.