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pp. 6349-6370
S&M4685 Research Paper https://doi.org/10.18494/SAM6483 Published: November 5, 2026 Examining Step-width Guidance Using a Soft Pneumatic Exosuit via Hip Abduction/Adduction Assistance [PDF] Jinnosuke Kamimura, Yuri Mikawa, Tetsuro Miyazaki, and Kenji Kawashima (Received June 15, 2026; Accepted September 24, 2026) Keywords: soft pneumatic exosuit, pneumatic artificial muscle, human-in-the-loop optimization, step-width guidance, participant experiment
Step-width modulation contributes to mediolateral balance during walking, and soft exosuits are promising for providing step-width guidance with limited interference to natural movement. In a previous study, a human-in-the-loop (HIL) framework based on Bayesian optimization (BO) was proposed for step-width guidance using a soft pneumatic exosuit driven by pneumatic artificial muscles (PAM-SPE). However, its effectiveness was evaluated only in a limited user study (N = 2), with analysis restricted to the single factor of assistance condition. In this study, we further evaluated PAM-SPE-based step-width guidance with more participants (N = 7) using a two-factor analysis of assistance condition and dynamically varying reference step width (mean ± SD: 0.251 ± 0.061 m). The assistance conditions were initial assistance using the initially obtained parameters, optimized assistance using the parameters obtained via BO, and the unassisted condition. Both assistance conditions significantly outperformed the unassisted condition, while no significant difference was found between the initial and optimized conditions. Post-hoc analysis suggested that assistance was effective for medium-to-large reference step widths, but not for small ones, likely because of physical interference between the PAM-SPE and participants’ legs. The BO process in our hip abduction/adduction assistance system also varied across participants, consistent with previous findings on participant-dependent HIL optimization.
Corresponding author: Tetsuro Miyazaki![]() ![]() This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Cite this article Jinnosuke Kamimura, Yuri Mikawa, Tetsuro Miyazaki, and Kenji Kawashima, Examining Step-width Guidance Using a Soft Pneumatic Exosuit via Hip Abduction/Adduction Assistance, Sens. Mater., Vol. 38, No. 11, 2026, p. 6349-6370. |