Ankle Exoskeleton Takes a Load Off Calf Muscles To Boost Walking Efficiency

Zothecula writes We might have started off in the water, but humans have evolved to be extremely efficient walkers, with a walk in the park being, well, a walk in the park. Human locomotion is so efficient that many wondered whether it was possible to reduce the energy cost of walking without the use of an external energy source. Now researchers at Carnegie Mellon and North Carolina State have provided an answer in the affirmative with the development of an unpowered ankle exoskeleton."

Comments

Re:"Unpowered"

[Urkki]

The energy to load the spring comes from the user as part of the normal operation cycle. That makes it unpowered.It does not bring extra energy to the operation (user walking by converting chemical energy to muscle contraction), it only changes how the energy is used.

The trick is to define the system and timeframe you are looking at sensibly. In this case you have the braces and the user taking a number of steps. The user generates the power, the braces are unpowered. If you looked at the braces for one unloading of the spring, you could say the frame is powered by the spring, but that is not very useful choice in most contexts outside design of the device.