Wearable devices for human movement assistance

Multi-directional Sensing Wearable Device for Human Motion Assistance

This technology relates to a wearable device for assisting human motion, which detects multi-directional movement and provides assistive force through sensors composed of internal/external electrodes and deformation elements.

Existing wearable sensors could only detect deformation in a single direction, making it difficult to accurately capture complex joint movements, and achieving multi-directional sensing often led to complex configurations and increased costs.

This technology implements multi-directional sensing with a simplified electrode structure, and an actuator provides assistive force based on the sensing results to support human motion. It can be widely applied to robotic hands, gait assistance devices, and more.

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Key Features:

• An inner electrode positioned at the center of a circle and a plurality of outer electrodes arranged at equal intervals along the circumference
• A plurality of deformation elements disposed between the inner electrode and each outer electrode, made of a material whose resistance changes upon deformation
• A control device that applies different control signals to an actuator based on the combination of different resistance values from each deformation element
• An actuator that assists the wearer's physical movement by operating based on the different control signals applied by the control device

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This invention was developed with support from the Ministry of Science and ICT for self-powered multifunctional fabric manufacturing technology.