Adding compliant joints and segmented foot to bio-inspired below-knee exoskeleton

This paper presents a bio-inspired below-knee exoskeleton to assist human walking. Different from the passive orthotic devices, the proposed exoskeleton includes powered compliant ankle and toe joints, which can output sufficient power to help the one with exoskeleton relearn normal walking gaits. We first propose a passivity-based dynamic bipedal model to analyze the effects of segmented foot and compliant joints on energetic efficiency and stability of bipedal walking. Starting from the results of theoretical analysis, we construct a below knee exoskeleton prototype with ankle and toe joints driven by two series-elastic actuators. Experimental results validate the effectiveness of the proposed exoskeleton.