A lower limb exoskeleton with energy storage components for assisting human load-bearing

Abstract Aiming at the problems of traditional exoskeletons, such as high weight, short use time and long charging time, a lower extremity load-carrying exoskeleton with an energy storage element is proposed. The exoskeleton is 5 kg weight and composed of a main body frame and an energy storage element. Through analyzing the exoskeleton and human body, the energy storage element is designed as a variable stiffness spring with a pre-tightening load, and the spring stiffness is optimized using a step-by-step search method. Finally, the correctness of the mathematical model is verified by simulating the dynamics of ADAMS. Under 40 kg weight-bearing, the simulation results show that the unilateral exoskeleton can transfer 60% of the load weight to the ground, reducing 11.9% of all the effective torque of humans.