A novel passive pelvic device for assistance during locomotion

Abstract

A large number of people suffer from impairments, such as injury to joints or the spinal cord, that limit motion of the pelvis. This motion plays an important role in balance and propulsion during a gait cycle. In this work, we present a method to design a passive device that assists the pelvis to move close to a reference trajectory during walking with partial body support. This device is un-motorized and contains only passive elements. In this paper, we model subjects with different ability levels and body weight support and determine optimum design parameters for the device. The simulation results show the configuration of the optimum device and time trajectories of pelvic rotations in comparison to the reference.