Development of endoskeleton type knee auxiliary power assist suit using pneumatic artificial muscles

Lower back pain continues to be an issue worldwide. One cause of lower back pain is the burden on the lumbar region caused by the handling of heavy objects. To reduce this burden on the lumbar region in the lifting, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in Japan has recommended a lifting technique called “squat lifting.” However this technique, which supports a large force on the knee, is not very popular. Therefore, to spread the use of squat lifting, we aimed to develop a power assist suit for knee auxiliary. In this study, firstly, the validity of the squat lifting in lower back pain was measured. Next, to construct a prototype based on the target value, the knee joint moments from motion analysis of squat lifting was estimated. Finally, the prototype was mounted on a human body to evaluate its performance. And we confirmed the effectiveness of the prototype.