Study on development of high performance shoes with human compatibility

In recent years, accidents of bone fracture with elderly people increase because of tendency to fall by a little step in a house. As one of this cause, it is considered that the center of gravity position with foot parts is changed. Therefore, in order to solve this problem we propose a new type of shoes with high performance by making use of compound rubber element. The rubber element can estimate an external force by measurement of pressure in the actuator. Thus, when the rubber element is used in the insole of the shoes, it is possible to estimate distribution of the external forces with foot parts. Further, the rubber element can control stiffness by adjusting of inner pressure. Therefore, the insole can adjust the center of gravity position of the foot part. In this paper, the mechanism of the proposed shoes is explained and basic performances of the proposed mechanism are clarified through some experimental results.