Human Factors in Interfaces for Rehabilitation-Assistive Exoskeletons: A Critical Review and Research Agenda

Abstract

Exoskeletons are wearable robots designed to restore or augment human physical abilities and, indirectly, cognitive functions. These devices can be classified based on the sector of application, the body part they are intended to support or enhance, the degree of assistance, and the source which they gather power from. Regardless of such technical features, exoskeletons are usually equipped with Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs), allowing users to interact with the system, both physically and cognitively. The current paper critically reviews the state of the art of HMIs, and discusses the future challenges concerning Human Factors issues associated with the experience of utilisation of HMIs for wearable assistive exoskeletons in neuromotor rehabilitation settings. An overview of extant types of rehabilitative exoskeletons' HMIs is provided, as well as a discussion on novel user experience research questions posed in light of the recent developments in the field.

Gait Recovery with an Overground Powered Exoskeleton: A Randomized Controlled Trial on Subacute Stroke Subjects

“…In the context of motor control, this cognitive process leads to the planning and execution of the motor action. Therefore, the continuous interaction between the subject and the WPE directly stimulates the phenomena involved in the cognitive process [ 39 ]. In our study, we assessed the quality of this continuous interaction with a questionnaire on the subject’s experience.…”

Exoskeletons: A challenge for development

“…In research, the mechanical design (Islam et al, 2017;Viteckova et al, 2018;Del Sanchez-Villamañan et al, 2019;Jamwal et al, 2020;Kermavnar et al, 2021;Rodríguez-Fernández et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2021;Tijjani et al, 2022) and the suitability of different control strategies for adaptive gait assistance (Jamwal et al, 2020;Baud et al, 2021) is still a major focus. Fewer reviews focus on different control algorithms and sensing (Massardi et al, 2022;Sun et al, 2022), human-machine interface (Giusino et al, 2020) or give a more generalized overview of the topic of exoskeletons (Masia et al, 2018;La Tejera et al, 2021). Some authors call for more synchronized research between different fields and regulatory institutions (Chen et al, 2020;Fosch-Villaronga and Özcan, 2020;Kapsalyamov et al, 2020).…”

“…When attaching exoskeletons to that model, the influence of wobbly mass in terms of its relative movement due to elasticity and its changing shape under pressure needs to be represented. This procedure provides necessary insight into the interaction between the exoskeleton and human tissue, as stated in Giusino et al ( 2020 ).…”