Wearable Exoskeleton Systems: Design, Control and Applications

Wearable exoskeletons are electro-mechanical systems designed to assist, augment, or enhance motion and mobility in a variety of human motion applications and scenarios. The applications cover a wide range of domains including medical devices for patient rehabilitation training in trauma recovery, movement aids for disabled persons, personal care robots for providing daily living assistance, and reduction of physical burden in industrial, manufacturing, security and military applications. The development of effective and affordable wearable exoskeletons poses several design, control and modelling challenges to researchers and manufacturers. Novel technologies are therefore being developed in a wide range of applications including adaptive motion controllers, human-robot interaction control, biological sensors and actuators, and materials and structures.

In this second edition of Wearable Exoskeleton Systems: Design, control and applications, the editors and authors have updated the original chapters with advances, technology breakthroughs and innovations in exoskeleton development which have taken place since the first edition was published in 2018. New chapters have been added on novel wearable sensing technologies, performance assessment methods, recent commercial developments, lessons learned and emerging trends.

This updated reference will be of interest to engineers, scientists and researchers in academia and industry, and advanced students and lecturers working in the fields of robotics, haptics, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, mechatronics, sensing, control engineering, computer vision, human computer interaction, AI, cognitive engineering, medical engineering, electronic engineering, and mobile and wireless engineering. It will also be of interest to researchers and scientists working on applications areas such as construction, manufacturing, rehabilitation, forestry, security and the military, as well as exoskeleton engineers and designers, software developers, safety professionals, and policymakers and standardization professionals.