Design and Research of Lower Limb Exoskeleton Based on a Hill-Type Muscle Model for Assisting People to Walk

This paper present the design of a lower limb exoskeleton which is a lightweight device that assists people to walk. Therefore, in order to manage and transfer the energy generated by human motion. The mechanical energy of knee joint during swing is transformed into spring elastic potential energy. The energy was transferred to the ankle joint for release at the end of walking. Based on Hill-type muscle model, a bionic muscle was designed, which controlled the spring structure to store and release energy during the gait cycle by controlling the on and off of four solenoid switches. The preliminary experiment on one healthy adult was carried out to evaluate the functionality of the device, the result showed that the device can match the normal human gait cycle rhythm, and the healthy person will feel the energy released from the spring during walking. It can also greatly improve the recovery speed of patients in rehabilitation training in the future.