Improving Exoskeleton Brace Design: Alleviating Misalignment and Parasitic Forces

Abstract

This article presents a design methodology for exoskeleton-user connection attachments, i.e., braces that aim to reduce parasitic forces and potentially improve user comfort. The proposed brace structure incorporates additional passive joints, identified through a hyperstaticity analysis to minimize undesired tangential forces, e.g., rubbing against the user’s skin. To assess the proposed structure, we primarily conducted simulation experiments using a human-exoskeleton coupled model in an MSC ADAMS environment. Subsequently, a series of real-life experiments was conducted using a self-balancing bipedal exoskeleton with two distinct dummy manikins. The results demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed brace structure in reducing the parasitic forces and slippage compared to the conventional fixation approach.