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This paper aims to propose a novel system design and control algorithm of lower limb exoskeleton, which provides walking assistance and load sharing for the wearer.

In this paper, the valve-controlled asymmetrical hydraulic cylinder is selected for driving the hip and knee joint of exoskeleton. Pressure shoe is developed that purpose on detecting changes in plantar force, and a fuzzy recognition algorithm using plantar pressure is proposed. Dynamic model of the exoskeleton is established, and the sliding mode control is developed to implement the position tracking of exoskeleton. A series of prototype experiments including benchtop test, full assistance, partial assistance and loaded walking experiments are set up to verify the tracking performance and power-assisted effect of the proposed exoskeleton.

The control performance of PID control and sliding mode control are compared. The experimental data shows the tracking trajectories and tracking errors of sliding mode control and demonstrate its good robustness to nonlinearities. sEMG of the gastrocnemius muscle tends to be significantly weakened during assisted walking.

In this paper, a structure that the knee joint and hip joint driven by the valve-controlled asymmetrical cylinder is used to provide walking assistance for the wearer. The sliding mode control is proposed to deal with the nonlinearities during joint rotation and fluids. It shows great robustness and frequency adaptability through experiments under different motion frequencies and assistance modes. The design and control method of exoskeleton is a good attempt, which takes positive impacts on the productivity or quality of the life of wearers.

Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is a three-dimensional deformity of the spine. Orthoses are the most commonly used treatment material in AIS. However, the physiological and psychological problems that arise due to these orthoses' rigid structures prevent their use by patients. Due to these problems, the authors have developed a posture supporting garment (soft exosuit) design for individuals aged 10–18, with Cobb angles of 25°–40°, which is the most rapidly progressing stage of the disease.

Soft exosuit prepared with experimental research method and user-centered design approach. The posture supporting effect is achieved by pattern engineering using fabric, belts, baleens and a gradual zipper system for to increase functionality, ease of use and fit.

The first six-month clinical trial in prototype use was carried out with a female patient with a 29° scoliosis Cobb angle and suitable wearing a rigid corset due to AIS. The patient was satisfied with the prototype and its functionality, ease of use, fit and comfort. Cosmetic body deformity due to scoliosis was not observed, and the Cobb angle was decreased by 10.7% at the end of the sixth month. Soft exosuit has been found effective in supporting the posture of individuals who had ongoing spinal growth.

The most important limitation of this study is that, despite a large number of prototype and prototype studies, trials could not be conducted on a large number of patients with different characteristics due to the COVID-19 pandemic. More experimental studies are needed to generalize the product to large audiences. The first goal is to investigate more patients with different spinal deformities in the future. The second goal is to measure the materials used and the quantitative measurement of body responses with the biomechanics field. It is planned to increase the soft exosuit functionality with smart textiles by adding wearable devices with future research.

This study is important because it constitutes the basis for future studies on pattern cutting soft materials' positioning.

It is thought that the study will contribute to functional solutions for different spinal deformities.

It is an entire functional soft garment without an actuator. It is customizable and modular for patients with spinal deformities. It is thought that the study will contribute to functional solutions for spinal deformities.

The purpose of this paper is to design a lower limb exoskeleton to enhance hemiplegic patient’s muscle strength and help the affected side return to normal gait after a long period of training.

A wire rope-driven exoskeleton that combines rigid bracket and flexible driven method was presented to assist the patients with rehabilitative walking training. By using three noncontact cameras, the patient’s gait was captured and the target trajectory of the affected side was analyzed. Meanwhile, a controlling strategy of the affected side, which mimics the gait of the healthy side, was developed to help hemiplegic patients with varying degrees of hemiplegic gait obtain personalized walking rehabilitation training.

The results show that the hemiplegic gait of hip excessive abduction and strephenopodia was prevented. After wearing the exoskeleton, the movement trajectories of both sides of the lower limb were approximately identical. Based on the controlling strategy, the exoskeleton can correct the impaired gait and provide assistance for patients during walking. The exoskeleton has great benefits in walking rehabilitation training for hemiplegic patients.

This work improves the efficiency of the patient’s individualized training in the room. The presented exoskeleton provides great benefits in walking rehabilitation training for hemiplegic patients.

This paper aims to deal with the development of a novel lower limb exoskeleton to assist disabled people in stair ascending.

For this purpose, a novel design of a mixture of motors and cables has been proposed for users to wear them easily and show the application of the system in stair climbing.

One of the prominences of this study is the provided robot design where four joints are actuated with only two motors; each motor actuates either the knees or ankles. Another advantage of the designed system is that with motors placed in a backpack, the knee braces can be worn under clothes to be concealed. Finally, the system performance is evaluated using electromyography (EMG) signals showing 28 per cent reduction in energy consumption of related muscles.

This investigation deals with the development of a novel lower limb exoskeleton to assist disabled people in stair ascending.

The objective of this study was to develop wearable suit platforms with various anchoring structure designs with the intention of improving wearability and enhancing user satisfaction.

This study selected fabrics and materials for the suit platform through material performance tests. Two anchoring structure designs, 11-type and X-type are compared with regular clothing under control conditions. To evaluate the comfort level of the wearable suit platform, a satisfaction survey and electroencephalogram (EEG) measurements are conducted to triangulate the findings.

The 11-type exhibited higher values in comfort indicators such as α, θ, α/High-β and lower values in concentration or stress indicators such as β, ϒ, sensorimotor rhythm (SMR)+Mid-β/θ, and a spectral edge frequency of 95% compared to the X-type while walking. The 11-type offers greater comfort and satisfaction compared to the X-type when lifting based on the EEG measurements and the participants survey.

It is recommended to implement the 11-type when designing wearable suit platforms. These findings offer essential data on wearability, which can guide the development of soft wearable robots.

Walking-aid exoskeletons can assist and protect effectively the group with lower limb muscle strength decline, workers, first responders and military personnel. However, there is almost no united control strategy that can effectively assist daily walking. This paper aims to propose a hybrid oscillators’ (HOs) model to adapt to irregular gait (IG) patterns (frequent alternation between walking and standing or rapid changing of walking speed, etc.) and generate compliant and no-delay assistive torque.

The proposed algorithm, HOs, combines adaptive oscillators (AOs) with phase oscillator through switching assistive mode depending on whether or not the AOs' predicting error of hip joint degree is exceeded our expectation. HOs can compensate for delay by predicting gait phase when in AOs mode. Several treadmill and free walking experiments are designed to test the adaptability and effectiveness of HOs model under IG.

The experimental results show that the assistive strategy based on the HOs is effective under IG patterns, and delay is compensated totally under quasiperiodic gait conditions where a smoother human–robot interaction (HRI) force and the reduction of HRI force peak are observed. Delay compensation is found very effective at improving the performance of the assistive exoskeleton.

A novel algorithm is proposed to improve the adaptability of a walking assist hip exoskeleton in daily walking as well as generate compliant, no-delay assistive torque when converging.

The purpose of this research was to develop clothing-typed soft wearable robot embedded with textile-based actuators on ankles for elderly adults needing gait assistance.

Design guidelines were developed and they included function (type, targeting area, routing line and anchor points), design (size/fit, fabric/material, fastener, detail, color) and actuator (shape memory alloy type, size, deformation type, integration material, integration technique and evaluation method). Fabric-based actuator, integration methods to fabrics, routing lines and anchoring points were developed based on the guidelines and evaluated. Then, three long socks types and a pants type were designed and prototyped. Routing line position displacement measurement test was conducted with the prototypes. A survey was conducted to investigate satisfaction, likeness and use intention on the design/prototype to modify the designs.

Important design factors were identified, and design guidelines for clothing-typed soft wearable robots (SWRs) were developed. People satisfied the developed SWR designs and prototypes with mean scores over 4.60.

The results are expected to be helpful for designers and developers of SWRs in the development process, and they will ultimately be beneficial to members of the elderly population who have gait difficulties.

This paper aims to provide an overview of robots presently in use by the military and an insight into some that are under development.

Following a short introduction, this paper first considers existing applications of robots in the military field, including details of Russian weaponised ground robots. It then highlights a range of military robot developments and concludes with a brief discussion.

Drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) and small unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) are among the most widely used robots by the military. Russia is developing a growing armoury of heavily weaponised UGVs, some of which were recently deployed in Syria. Some topics of development include humanoid robots, powered exoskeletons, load-carrying robots, micro-air vehicles and autonomous land vehicles. Robots will play an ever-growing role in military actions, and while some developments offer longer-term prospects, others are expected to be deployed in the near future.

Robots are playing an increasingly important role in military conflicts, and this provides details of present-day and anticipated future uses of robots by the military.

This paper aims to devise a first-of-its-kind methodology to determine the design, operating conditions and actuation strategy of pneumatic artificial muscles (PAMs) for assistive robotic applications. This requires extensive characterization, data set generation and meaningful modelling between PAM characteristics and design variables. Such a characterization should cover a wide range of design and operation parameters. This is a stepping stone towards generating a design guide for this highly popular compliant actuator, just like any conventional element of a mechanism.

Characterization of a large pool of custom fabricated PAMs of varying designs is performed to determine their static and dynamic behaviours. Metaheuristic optimizer-based artificial neural network (ANN) structures are used to determine eight different models representing PAM behaviour. The assistance of knee flexion during level walking is targeted for evaluating the applicability of the developed actuator by attaching a PAM across the joint. Accordingly, the PAM design and the actuation strategy are optimized through a tabletop emulator.

The dependence of passive length, static contraction, dynamic step response for inflation and deflation of the PAMs on their design dimensions and operating parameters is successfully modelled by the ANNs. The efficacy of these models is investigated to successfully optimize the PAM design, operation parameters and actuation strategy for using a PAM in assisting knee flexion in human gait.

Characterization of static and the dynamic behaviour of a large pool of PAMs with varying designs over a wide range of operating conditions is the novel feature in this article. A lucid customizable fabrication technique is discussed to obtain a wide variety of PAM designs. Metaheuristic-based ANNs are used for tackling high non-linearity in data while modelling the PAM behaviour. An innovative tabletop emulator is used for investigating the utility of the models in the possible application of PAMs in assistive robotics.