Leg control based on human motion prediction using motion sensor for power assist suit without binding knee

Recently, power assist suits which support human physical activities have been researched. We are developing a power assist suit for workers in a nuclear power plant. If a disaster happens, the workers have to wear heavy radiation protective equipment. The power assist suit is supposed to support the wearer so that it reduces the load of the radiation protection equipment during an operation. This paper proposes a power assist control method based on motion prediction using 9-axis motion sensors. The power assist suit enables rapid power assist because the motion sensor can detect the start of walking motion in real time. A motion database consists of angles and angular velocities of wearer's chest, lower limbs, and joint angles of the power assist suit. The power assist suit recognizes the motion of the wearer based on the database. Then, it assists the wearer based on the estimation of the motion of the wearer. We conduct experiments to evaluate the proposed method.