A novel Dynamic Body Weight Support overground co-walker enabling variable unloading ratio and Motion Tracking

Dynamic Body Weight Support (BWS) systems have gained attention in recent years for their potential in gait training. However, maintaining a natural gait and vertical unloading have been less explored. In our previous work, we developed a body Motion Tracking (MT) walker that can move with patients. In this study, we introduce a novel Motion Tracking Variable Body Weight Support (MTVBWS) system for overground walkers. This system utilizes Center of Mass (COM) tracking and gait phase detection to not only dynamically support the user's body weight in the vertical direction but also to facilitate movement in all directions. The system achieves this horizontal omnidirectional movement by employing active Mecanum wheels, guided by COM recognition. The validation experiments were implemented with the MT mode, passive mode, and BWS mode in “static,” “fixed unloading ratio (FUR),” and “variable unloading ratio (VUR)” settings with unloading force of 20 and 30%. The result shows that, compared to other modes, the proposed system in the MTVBWS mode can reduce the dragging effect in the horizontal plane caused by the walker. Moreover, the unloading force can be adjusted automatically to minimize the fluctuations in the force experienced by each lower limb during the rehabilitation walking training process. In comparison to natural walk, this mode presents smaller force fluctuations for each lower limb.