Virtual Prototyping Validation of a Leg Exoskeleton Mechanism from Dynamic Considerations

This research addresses to a leg exoskeleton design for walking assistance of a seven-year-old child. Thus it will be elaborated a theoretical dynamic model of the child locomotion system in order to obtain the connection forces at each main joint level. The proposed dynamic model is a parametrized one and respects the anthropometric data of the analyzed human subject. The analyzed joints are the hips, knee, and ankle joints for a complete gait. The input data used for virtual prototyping are the motion laws obtained experimentally for the corresponding joints, and with these, it will numerically processed the results of a parametrized leg exoskeleton mechanism. The proposed leg exoskeleton mechanism represents a combination of a pantograph, Chebyshev, and Stephenson III six-bar mechanisms. The research core focuses on the connection forces obtained at the ankle joint level with the aid of MSC Adams software. Virtual simulations are done with this software and a leg exoskeleton mechanism used for human walking assistance will be validated.