6 Nov 2024

Compact soft hip wearable cut walking metabolic cost by 12.7% in a preliminary study of eight adults

Robotics and artificial musclesMedical technology and bioelectronics
AI illustration · Illustrative scene, not a photograph of the specific device or experiment.

What was demonstrated

Researchers at TUM and collaborators tested LM-Ease, a compact, tendon-driven soft wearable robot for hip assistance, in eight healthy young adults. The abstract reports a 12.7% reduction in metabolic cost during ground walking. The device switches between assistance profiles for sitting, standing and walking. The same abstract reports an average reduction in muscle activation of 15.6% during stand-to-sit and 17.8% during sit-to-stand. The authors describe these results as preliminary.

Why it matters

A compact soft wearable that lowers the energy cost of walking could help people with reduced leg strength if the effect holds in patients. The result comes from a small group of healthy young adults and does not show benefit for people with mobility loss.

Caveats

  • The group was eight healthy young adults. The result does not show whether the effect holds in older adults or people with mobility impairment.
  • The 12.7% figure comes from a preliminary laboratory study. It is not a measure of long-term use or of clinical benefit.
  • The abstract does not give walking speed, session length or the comparison condition in the sources reviewed, so the figure should be read as specific to the study setup.

Technology profiles

Sources

  1. peer reviewed paper
    A Lower Limb Wearable Exosuit for Improved Sitting, Standing, and Walking Efficiency
    Xiaohui Zhang, Enrica Tricomi, Xunju Ma et al.. IEEE Transactions on Robotics, 6 Nov 2024. DOI: 10.1109/TRO.2024.3492452.
  2. other
    A Lower Limb Wearable Exosuit for Improved Sitting, Standing, and Walking Efficiency
    Xiaohui Zhang, Enrica Tricomi, Xunju Ma et al.. Technical University of Munich (TUM) research portal, 2024.

Last reviewed 21 Oct 2026.