Page 318 - Handbook of Biomechatronics

310 Andres F. Ruiz-Olaya et al.

Fig. 6 Top, exosuit to assist hip extension. Two actuator units are mounted on a back-
pack frame, and connected to cloth thigh braces with webbing. Bottom, overview of
device operation. Starting at 90% in the gait cycle, which extends from one heelstrike
to the next, the actuator units retract the webbing. (From Asbeck, A.T., Schmidt, K.,
Walsh, C.J., 2015. Soft exosuit for hip assistance. Robot. Auton. Syst. 73, 102–110, with
permission from Elsevier.)
Walsh and the team since the beginning of the project and has helped the
team grow their expertise in running protocols to evaluate the effect of
the exosuit on wearers (Panizzolo et al., 2016).
The soft exosuit team’s researchers found that wearers significantly
adapted their gait with increasing levels of assistance. The changes were most
significant at the ankle joint but also at the hip as the exosuit included straps
coupling the assistance from the back of the lower legs to the front of the hip
in a beneficial manner. Other studies had reported that there can be an
energy transfer between the ankle and other joints (Panizzolo et al., 2016).