Mechanism Improvement of RoboWalk Rehabilitation Device to Adjust the Assistive Force Direction

The growing need for assistive and rehabilitative robots requires more understanding of interactions between the human and such robots. RoboWalk is one of such robotic assistive devices to help users in walking. One of the challenges in using RoboWalk is the horizontal component which undesirably appears besides the desirable assistive vertical force for weight compensation. This horizontal component can disrupt the user’s gait and cause discomfort and stability disturbances. This is due to the fact that the current design of RoboWalk does not allow for any displacement due to the singularity of the robot’s inverse kinematics. This paper proposes a few solutions to solve this problem in redesigning the motion mechanism. Analyses using Adams software show the effects of each solution on enhancing RoboWalk’s functionality. Obtained results reveal that the proposed solutions are feasible and have the potential to significantly improve the user experience.