Choe Eunbin, Moon Junyoung, Ryu Jaewook, Yang Seungtae, Nasirzadeh Alireza, Kong Sejin, Choi Youngsuk, Lee Giuk
School of Mechanical Engineering, Chung-Ang University, Seoul 06974, Republic of Korea.
HUROTICS Inc., Seoul 06912, Republic of Korea.
Biomimetics (Basel). 2025 Aug 16;10(8):539. doi: 10.3390/biomimetics10080539.
Acute ankle sprains frequently lead to chronic ankle instability and muscle atrophy by causing immobilization, which necessitates real-time stiffness modulation for ankle-foot orthoses (AFOs). This paper proposes Active Variable Compression Shoes (AVC-Shoes), an ankle support system inspired by the "heel-lock taping" technique, which employs a wire-fabric compression mechanism to selectively stiffen ankle joints at crucial points in the gait cycle. The experimental results confirmed that AVC-Shoes achieve variable ankle stiffness in all directions, demonstrating dorsiflexion and plantarflexion stiffness ranges of up to 8.3 and 5.9 Nm/rad, respectively. Additionally, preliminary human testing involving three healthy participants revealed that the gastrocnemius muscle activity during the push-off phase in the active compression mode was significantly higher (by 19%) than that in the brace mode. By selectively increasing stiffness at heel strikes, AVC-Shoes represent a promising advancement toward next-generation AFOs capable of stabilizing the ankle while preventing muscle atrophy, which is associated with prolonged brace use.
急性踝关节扭伤常因导致关节固定而引发慢性踝关节不稳和肌肉萎缩，因此需要对踝足矫形器（AFO）进行实时刚度调节。本文提出了主动可变压缩鞋（AVC-Shoes），这是一种受“足跟锁定贴扎”技术启发的踝关节支撑系统，它采用金属丝织物压缩机制在步态周期的关键节点选择性地增强踝关节的刚度。实验结果证实，AVC-Shoes在各个方向上都能实现可变的踝关节刚度，背屈和跖屈刚度范围分别高达8.3和5.9 Nm/rad。此外，涉及三名健康参与者的初步人体测试表明，主动压缩模式下蹬离阶段腓肠肌的活动比支撑模式下显著更高（高19%）。通过在足跟触地时选择性增加刚度，AVC-Shoes代表了下一代AFO的一个有前景的进展，这种AFO能够稳定踝关节，同时防止与长期使用支撑装置相关联的肌肉萎缩。
