Gait motion assisting apparatus

A gait motion assisting apparatus comprising:

• an actuator that imparts assisting force to a user's gait motion;
• a thigh orientation detecting unit that detects an angle-related signal that is related to a hip joint angle, which is a front-back swing angle of the user's thigh, at each sampling timing;
• a thigh phase angle calculating unit that calculates a thigh phase angle by using a hip joint angle obtained based on the angle-related signal from the thigh orientation detecting unit and a hip joint angular velocity obtained by differentiating the hip joint angle;
• an assisting torque calculating unit that has an output torque pattern defining a relationship between a cycle gait motion timing during a gait cycle and a torque value to be output and applies a cycle gait motion timing during a gait cycle recognized based on the thigh phase angle to the output torque pattern to calculate the torque value to be output;
• and
• an operational control unit that executes operational control on the actuator to output assisting force having the torque value calculated by the assisting torque calculating unit, wherein
• the thigh phase angle calculating unit is configured to divide an unnormalized hip joint angle obtained based on the angle-related signal from the thigh orientation detecting unit by a stored hip joint angle normalization coefficient to calculate a normalized hip joint angle, divide an unnormalized hip joint angular velocity obtained by differentiating the unnormalized hip joint angle by a stored hip joint angular velocity normalization coefficient to calculate a normalized hip joint angular velocity, and calculate the thigh phase angle by using the normalized hip joint angle and the normalized hip joint angular velocity.