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

Vidal, Alan Francisco Pérez; Rumbo‐Morales, Jesse Y.; Torres, Gerardo Ortiz; Vázquez, Felipe de J. Sorcia; Rojas, Alan Cruz; Mendoza, Jorge A. Brizuela; Cerda, Julio César Rodríguez

doi:10.3390/act10070166

Cited by 52 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 90 publications

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“…The robot is a product of multidisciplinary intersection; since its birth, it has shown its unique advantages in every field, and gradually from the industry has expanded into military, medical, daily health care and other fields [ 1 ]; among them, exoskeleton robots have a broad range of application prospects in the medical health field, logistics and industrial manufacturing [ 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ]. Particularly in the medical field, patients can complete a lot of physiological gait training with the help of the lower limb exoskeleton robot, in order to achieve the purpose of reestablishing the correct movement pattern as early as possible to participate in daily activities like healthy people [ 7 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research on Lower Limb Step Speed Recognition Method Based on Electromyography

Zhang

Wang

2023

Micromachines

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Wearable exoskeletons play an important role in people’s lives, such as helping stroke and amputation patients to carry out rehabilitation training and so on. How to make the exoskeleton accurately judge the human action intention is the basic requirement to ensure that it can complete the corresponding task. Traditional exoskeleton control signals include pressure values, joint angles and acceleration values, which can only reflect the current motion information of the human lower limbs and cannot be used to predict motion. The electromyography (EMG) signal always occurs before a certain movement; it can be used to predict the target’s gait speed and movement as the input signal. In this study, the generalization ability of a BP neural network and the timing property of a hidden Markov chain are used to properly fuse the two, and are finally used in the research of this paper. Experiments show that, using the same training samples, the recognition accuracy of the three-layer BP neural network is only 91%, while the recognition accuracy of the fusion discriminant model proposed in this paper can reach 95.1%. The results show that the fusion of BP neural network and hidden Markov chain has a strong solving ability for the task of wearable exoskeleton recognition of target step speed.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research on Lower Limb Step Speed Recognition Method Based on Electromyography

Zhang

Wang

2023

Micromachines

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“…In order to overcome the shortcomings of the rigid exoskeleton mentioned above, many scholars have studied soft exoskeletons that are more comfortable to wear (SEU-EXO [ 7 ], Exosuit [ 8 ], Myosuit [ 9 ], etc. ), namely the soft power assistance system, which can assist the lower limbs in the state of walking or running [ 10 ]. The flexible driving units, such as the Bowden line, pneumatic muscle, and airbag, are applied to transmit the auxiliary forces and moments to the hip, knee, or ankle joints [ 11 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ergonomics Design and Assistance Strategy of A-Suit

Zhang

Gao

Cui³

et al. 2022

Micromachines

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Concerning the biomechanics and energy consumption of the lower limbs, a soft exoskeleton for the powered plantar flexion of the ankle, named A-Suit, was developed to improve walking endurance in the lower limbs and reduce metabolic consumption. The method of ergonomics design was used based on the biological structures of the lower limbs. A profile of auxiliary forces was constructed according to the biological force of the Achilles tendon, and an iterative learning control was applied to shadow this auxiliary profile by iteratively modifying the traction displacements of drive units. During the evaluation of the performance experiments, four subjects wore the A-Suit and walked on a treadmill at different speeds and over different inclines. Average heart rate was taken as the evaluation index of metabolic consumption. When subjects walked at a moderate speed of 1.25 m/s, the average heart rate Hav under the Power-ON condition was 7.25 ± 1.32% (mean ± SEM) and 14.40 ± 2.63% less than the condition of No-suit and Power-OFF. Meanwhile, the additional mass of A-Suit led to a maximum Hav increase of 7.83 ± 1.44%. The overall reduction in Hav with Power-ON over the different inclines was 6.93 ± 1.84% and 13.4 ± 1.93% compared with that of the No-Suit and Power-OFF condition. This analysis offers interesting insights into the viability of using this technology for human augmentation and assistance for medical and other purposes.

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“…However, it lacks the inclusion of other important factors such as physical load reduction, power, tasks, maximum assistive force, challenges faced by exoskeletons, and some of the new power transmission methods have not been included. In (Pérez Vidal et al, 2021;Xiloyannis et al, 2021) authors focused on challenges faced by the soft robotic suits for both upper and lower limbs including the hip joint. These reviews covered only the soft robotic suits for the hip joint, functional and structural characteristics were not discussed thoroughly.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Systematic Review of Back-Support Exoskeletons and Soft Robotic Suits

Ali

Fontanari

Schmoelz

et al. 2021

Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.

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Lower back pain and musculoskeletal injuries are serious concerns for workers subjected to physical workload and manual material handling tasks. Spine assistive exoskeletons are being developed to support the spine and distribute the spine load. This article presents a detailed up-to-date review on the back support exoskeletons by discussing their type (Active/Passive), structure (Rigid/Soft), power transmission methods, weight, maximum assistive force, battery technologies, tasks (lifting, bending, stooping work), kinematic compatibility and other important features. This article also assesses the back support exoskeletons in terms of their ability to reduce the physical load on the spine. By reviewing functional and structural characteristics, the goal is to increase communication and realization among ergonomics practitioners, developers, customers, and factory workers. The search resulted in reviewing 34 exoskeletons of which 16 were passive and 18 were active. In conclusion, back support exoskeletons have immense potential to significantly reduce the factors regarding work-related musculoskeletal injuries. However, various technical challenges and a lack of established safety standards limit the wide adaptation of exoskeletons in industry.

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

Cited by 52 publications

References 90 publications

Research on Lower Limb Step Speed Recognition Method Based on Electromyography

Research on Lower Limb Step Speed Recognition Method Based on Electromyography

Ergonomics Design and Assistance Strategy of A-Suit

Systematic Review of Back-Support Exoskeletons and Soft Robotic Suits

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