This week the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Samsung that reveals a health industry related device that will assist those with injuries or the elderly to walk again with this motion assistive device.
Samsung Invention: Driving Module & Motion Assistance Apparatus
With the onset of rapidly aging societies, a number of people may experience inconvenience and/or pain from joint problems. Thus, there is a growing interest in motion assistance apparatuses enabling the elderly and/or patients having joint problems to walk with less effort. Furthermore, motion assistance apparatuses increasing muscular strength of human bodies may be useful for military purposes.
In general, motion assistance apparatuses for assisting motion of lower parts of bodies may include body frames disposed on trunks of users, pelvic frames coupled to lower sides of the body frames to cover pelvises of the users, femoral frames disposed on thighs of the users, sural frames disposed on calves of the users, and/or pedial frames disposed on feet of the users. The pelvic frames and femoral frames may be connected rotatably by hip joint portions, the femoral frames and sural frames may be connected rotatably by knee joint portions, and/or the sural frames and pedial frames may be connected rotatably by ankle joint portions.
The motion assistance apparatuses may include active joint structures including hydraulic systems and/or driving motors to drive each joint portion to improve muscular strength of legs of the users. For example, separate motors to transmit driving power may be provided at left and right hip joint portions, respectively.
Samsung's invention covers a driving module which includes a driving source on one side of a user, the driving source configured to transmit power, a power transmitting rotary body configured to rotate by the power transmitted from the driving source, and a first decelerator configured to transmit power between the driving source and the power transmitting rotary body. The first decelerator includes an input side rotary body configured to receive power from the driving source, and an output side rotary body configured to transmit power to the power transmitting rotary body.
Samsung's patent FIG. 1 noted above is a rear view illustrating a user wearing a motion assistance apparatus; FIG. 2 illustrates a driving module.
Samsung filed their patent application back in December 2014. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.
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