14 accepted papers
Synchrony is a cornerstone for the successful physical interaction between humans while cooperating or competing towards a goal and is achieved by correct and smooth information exchange between subjects. Recently, Human-Robot- Human (HRH) interaction arose as an emerging paradigm for improving moto…
Synchrony is a cornerstone for the successful physical interaction between humans while cooperating or competing towards a goal and is achieved by correct and smooth information exchange between subjects. Recently, Human-Robot-Human (HRH) interaction arose as an emerging paradigm for improving motor
Lower-limb exoskeletons are wearable devices whose main purposes are human rehabilitation and bilateral locomotion assistance. In particular, there is a growing interest for their use to symmetrize the gait of hemiparetic patients. This often consists in using the kinematics of the less affected sid…
This study presents a novel torque-controlled hand exoskeleton, named HandeXos-gamma, which uses a series-elastic actuator (SEA)-based architecture to allow a compliant actuation of the hand joints, and an intention decoding algorithm that combines surface electromyography (sEMG) signals with kinema
Lower-limb exoskeletons are robotic devices that can provide assistance to human locomotion. Since they are expected to be used in ecological environments, their control strategy should handle different kinds of daily-life situations. Taking inspiration from the human neuromuscular system - and part…
Typical industrial work activities may include a variety of different gestures, entailing the execution of dynamic and static movements. Occupational upper-limb exoskeletons can assist the shoulder complex in both static and dynamic gestures, but the required assistance level may be different accord
This letter describes the design and characterization of an upper-limb exoskeleton for post-stroke rehabilitation. The platform interacts with the shoulder and elbow of the user through four active joints, driven by series elastic actuators (SEAs) with custom springs to achieve compactness and ease
Powered hip exoskeletons, in combination with passive prostheses, have been recently proposed to improve the economy and pattern of walking of lower-limb amputees within clinical scenarios. However, for everyday life support, a real-time control strategy that can accurately recognize different locom
Physically demanding work is still common in western countries, with large proportions of the workforce that are exposed for more than a quarter of their working time to tiring postures or repetitive tasks: the shoulder is one of the main body areas susceptible to work-related musculo-skeletal disor
Reproducing the mechanisms of human locomotion is a hard challenge. Assistive wearable devices in this context need to be lightweight, portable, and to adapt to the wearer’s walking pattern. Aiming to combine the aforementioned features, we developed a soft wearable exosuit to assist hip flexion dur
In this paper we present the design and characterization of a novel Passive Variable Stiffness Joint (pVSJ). pVSJ is the proof of concept of a passive revolute joint with controllable variable stiffness. The current design is intended to be a bench-test for future development towards applications in…
Variable stiffness actuators (VSA) are fostered in robotics for their capability to address physical interaction with a physically adjustable compliance, being advantageous in terms of efficiency, safety and adaptability to unknown environments. Here we introduce the concept of a switching VSA (sVSA…
This paper presents a realtime locomotion mode recognition method for an active pelvis orthosis. Five locomotion modes, including sitting, standing still, level-ground walking, ascending stairs, and descending stairs, are taken into consideration. The recognition is performed with locomotion informa…