Prototype Development of an Assistive Lower Limb Exoskeleton

The number of patients suffering from physical or neurological disorder with lower limb impairment is increasing rapidly; hence, not allowing them to perform activities of daily livings (ADLs). This paper presents a preliminary work towards the development of a low-cost active lower limb exoskeleton that will assist the wearer while performing ADLs. The exoskeleton is modeled in Solid Works, with a single actuator at the knee joint that is controlled by getting the information from foot sensitive resistors (FSRs) and encoders. The desired knee angle in the sagittal plane during the swing phase of the gait was fed to the controller and then modeling, and simulation technique was applied to achieve the desired output. The preliminary results were reasonable as the system has the ability to assist during slow walking. Future work includes the necessary improvements in the proposed system so that investigations will be carried out for walking assistance of disabled persons.