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.



Funding Information

*The Industrial Strategic Technology Development Program (No. 20007058) and funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE, Korea)
* Korea Medical Device Development Fund grant from the Korean government (Ministry of Science and ICT, Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, Ministry of Health and Welfare, and Ministry of Food and Drug Safety) (Project Numbers: 1711174527 and RS-2022-00140621).
*This research was also supported by the Chung-Ang University Research Scholarship Grants in 2024.