Patent ID: 9119762
Filing Date: 2015-09-01
Classification: A61H

Abstract:
1. A walking assist device, comprising: a first attachment adapted to be attached to an upper body of a human being; a pair of second attachments, each of which is adapted to be attached to right and left thighs, respectively, of the human being; a pair of actuators; a right hip joint angle sensor adapted to output a signal based on a right hip joint angle of the human being and a left hip joint angle sensor adapted to output a signal based on a left hip joint angle of the human being; and a control unit adapted to control an operation of each of the pair of actuators based on at least output signals of the right hip joint angle sensor and the left hip joint angle sensor, wherein each of the pair of the second attachments is moved relative to the first attachment by operating each of the pair of the actuators, thereby assisting a walking motion of the human being, which involves relative cyclic motions of the right and left thighs with respect to the upper body, the control unit is adapted to control a magnitude of movement amplitudes of the pair of the actuators for assisting each of a bending motion and a stretching motion of the right thigh and a bending motion and a stretching motion of the left thigh of the human being based on a magnitude of a value of each of a right bending coefficient, a right stretching coefficient, a left bending coefficient and a left stretching coefficient, and comprises: an asymmetry evaluating unit adapted to evaluate a degree of asymmetry between a right motion oscillator, which is a waveform signal indicating the time-dependent change form of an output of the right hip joint angle sensor, and a left motion oscillator, which is a waveform signal indicating the time-dependent change form of an output of the left hip joint angle sensor, the degree of asymmetry being a difference between an amplitude of the left motion oscillator and an amplitude of the right motion oscillator; and an adjusting unit adapted to adjust the value of at least one of the right bending coefficient, the right stretching coefficient, the left bending coefficient and the left stretching coefficient so as to reduce the degree of asymmetry evaluated by the asymmetry evaluating unit, and such that the left bending coefficient and the right stretching coefficient become a same value, and the right bending coefficient and the left stretching coefficient become a same value.