Design of a Lower Limb Energy Harvester Based on Clutch Management

This paper presents the design of a lower limb energy harvester based on clutch management for assisted walking. The energy harvester was designed to collect the energy consumed by walking and provide it as energy input to join the energy circulation system. Through harvesting the energy of the healthy side of the lower limb, release it when the affected side works, to realize the movement assistance independently. The energy harvesting and transmission exoskeleton (EHTE) has been developed to capture and utilize the energy, the end tooth meshing structure was designed, realizing a clutch function to store and release energy during the gait cycle. The sEMG experiment was carried out to explore the influence mechanism on the main muscles, the result indicates that the function of walking has enhanced with the help of the lifting effect from the exoskeleton. The exoskeleton based on human bioenergy is verified to participate in energy management, which can provide unilateral lower limb assistance, realize energy migration, and improve the ability of autonomous activities.