Active air mat for comfortable and easy to wear a forearm support system

This paper proposes an active air mat that improves comfortableness and easiness to wear an exoskeleton on a forearm. They are ones of important factors for the system performance evaluation in addition to physical support functions of the system. The active air mat which is installed in interface parts of the exoskeleton enables a wearer to attach and release the exoskeleton in an easy way and a short time by quickly inflating the air chambers to hold a human arm or deflating them to release. The air mat adaptively fills a gap between a human arm of various sizes and an exoskeleton. In addition, the air mat minimizes constriction of blood flow by changing contacting areas with a human arm from the periphery to the trunk. The exhaust air from the deflating air chamber is used to ventilate around skin surface so that humidity of the skin could keep low by the ventilation. The active air mat is evaluated through some experiments from the viewpoint of pressure distribution, blood flow, wearing time, releasing time, body-holding rigidity, and temperature and humidity of a human skin in resting and working states.