Running Motion Assistance Using a Soft Gait-Assistive Suit and Its Experimental Validation

A gait training method that can adjust the target leg load is required to meet the varied demands of trainees. In this study, we propose a running training method using a soft gait-assistive suit—a power-assistive device that adds an external force to the leg of a trainee by actuating a pneumatic artificial muscle (PAM). Herein, the assisting force is applied to the leg of the trainee so that muscle activity is reduced throughout the gait cycle. We detected the terminal stance phase as an appropriate assist timing from the pressure information, and the detected timing was used for the PAM control. We conducted a verification experiment of the PAM pressure variation. In a running mode of 7.0 to 10.0 km/h, all data showed that the PAM at the calf front has better detectability than that at the calf back, which is used in conventional detection methods. The experimental results confirmed that the PAM for gait phase detection should be positioned at the calf front during running. The effectiveness of the proposed running training method was verified through experiments on four trainees using a treadmill. The leg electromyogram of the trainees was measured and changes observed. Accordingly, 14 out of 16 channels of the four trainees showed a significant difference, and the electromyograms decreased by the suit assistance in the range of −1.4 to − 80.3% maximum voluntary contraction. Thus, the experimental results quantitatively confirmed that the proposed running assistance method is effective in reducing muscular activity.