Kazuto Miyawaki, Takehiro Iwami, Goro Obinata, Keiichi Kutsuzawa and Shinzo Nishimura

Abstract:
As society ages, equipment for assisting walking is receiving increasing attention. We previously developed a cart to assist walking on flat surfaces and evaluated its effect on user muscular tension and energy consumption. In this paper, we determined energy consumption during slope walking based on a musculoskeletal model; 10% and 15% decreases of energy consumption are achieved with cart assistance in slope ascent and descent. We expect our evaluation to be useful for developing a practical walker.

Keywords: biomechanics, bio-motion, musculo-skeletal model, human walk, energy consumption