Reducing the metabolic rate of walking and running with a versatile, portable exosuit

Walking and running have fundamentally different biomechanics, which makes developing devices that assist both gaits challenging. We show that a portable exosuit that assists hip extension can reduce the metabolic rate of treadmill walking at 1.5 meters per second by 9.3% and that of running at 2.5 meters per second by 4.0% compared with locomotion without the exosuit. These reduction magnitudes are comparable to the effects of taking off 7.4 and 5.7 kilograms during walking and running, respectively, and are in a range that has shown meaningful athletic performance changes. The exosuit automatically switches between actuation profiles for both gaits, on the basis of estimated potential energy fluctuations of…

• NS
  National Science Foundation

  Award: CNS-1446464
• R
  Rolex
• NI
  National Institutes of Health

  Award: P20GM109090
• S
  Samsung
• HW
  Hansjörg Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University
• DS
  Defense Sciences Office, DARPA

  Award: W911NF-14-C-0051