An Assistive Soft Wrist Exosuit for Flexion Movements With an Ergonomic Reinforced Glove

Abstract

Soft exosuits are a promising solution for the assistance and augmentation of human motor abilities in the industrial field, where the use of more symbiotic wearable robots can avoid excessive worker fatigue and improve the quality of the work. One of the challenges in the design of soft exosuits is the choice of the right amount of softness to balance load transfer, ergonomics, and weight. This article presents a cable-driven based soft wrist exosuit for flexion assistance with the use of an ergonomic reinforced glove. The flexible and highly compliant three-dimensional (3D)-printed plastic structure that is sewn on the glove allows an optimal force transfer from the remotely located motor to the wrist articulation and to preserve a high level of comfort for the user during assistance. The device is shown to reduce fatigue and the muscular effort required for holding and lifting loads in healthy subjects for weights up to 3 kg.

A Data‐Driven Review of Soft Robotics

“…[ 505 ] Perhaps the most common controller in everyday life is a printed circuit board, [ 506 ] made mainly from a composite matrix of rigid plastic. Nascent research has focused on making use of the rigidity of plastics for the grounding of torques in wearable exosuits, [ 507 ] developing computational inverse designs of surface topologies for the aforementioned inflatable flexible sheets, [ 508 ] and incorporating an array of kirigami‐based grippers for manipulating delicate objects. [ 509 ] The appeal of plastics generally comes from low‐cost fabrication, availability, electrically insulating characteristics, and a breadth of structural properties.…”

Challenges and solutions for application and wider adoption of wearable robots

“…However, the preservation of the freedom of movement offered by soft exosuits, as well as their comfort, depends on ergonomically appropriate design. Indeed, several recent works have focused on the design of ergonomic soft exoskeletons to minimize user discomfort (Andrikopoulos et al, 2015;Varghese et al, 2018;Choi et al, 2019;Chiaradia et al, 2021). These studies showed how the combination of textile fibers, 3D printed plastic materials and sometimes even metal parts, should be carefully designed to offer appropriate ergonomics and avoid possible limitations of the device's functionality.…”

Soft Exoskeletons: Development, Requirements, and Challenges of the Last Decade

“…Chiaradia et al [63] developed a cable-based soft wrist exosuit. The device reduces muscle fatigue and allows it to lift small weights of up to 3 kg.…”