Patent ID: 7278954
Filing Date: 2007-10-09
Classification: A61H,A63B,B25J,B62D,G05B

Abstract:
1. A method of controlling generated torques of respective torque generation means in a leg body exercise assistive apparatus, which includes a pair of leg sections, each to be attached to a different one of a person's legs so as to be movable integrally with the person's legs, with each of the leg sections having: a foot orthosis portion for supporting a bottom side of a foot of the person to whom the leg sections are to be attached, joint regions corresponding to an ankle joint, a knee joint, and a hip joint of each leg of the person to whom the leg sections are to be attached, link members for attaching the foot orthosis portion and the joint regions to the person's legs, and torque generation means capable of generating a support torque applied to at least the joint regions corresponding to the knee joint and the hip joint of the person's legs to which the leg sections are to be attached, the method comprising: a moment estimation step comprising: a torque control step comprising controlling the torque generation means so as to generate support torque, which is obtained by adding a torque determined according to the estimated value of the person-side joint moment corresponding to the joint region concerned to a respective reference torque, on the assumption that the estimated value of the apparatus-side joint moment of each joint region corresponding to each of the knee joint and the hip joint of the leg is the reference torque to be generated by the torque generation means corresponding to the joint region concerned.