Development of a Power Assist System of a Walking Chair Based on Human Arm Characteristics

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In this paper, design of control system and power combination mechanism of a power assist system of the walking chair was discussed based on kinetostatic characteristics of human arm. The walking chair is a welfare walking machine which is an alternative vehicle of the wheelchair, and expected to be driven by users cranking operation with assisting actuator. To efficiently utilize user power as much as possible for long locomotion without giving much fatigue to the user while providing comfortable driving feeling to the user, the human arm characteristics were taken into consideration. Kinetostatic characteristics of the human arm were experimentally investigated for its modeling. This model was applied to the design of mechanism and control system of the power assist system of the walking chair, and design parameters were determined for achieving comfortable driving feeling and efficient utilization of user power.