A Review of exoskeleton-type systems and their key technologies

Abstract

The exoskeleton-type system is a brand new type of man—machine intelligent system. It fully combines human intelligence and machine power so that machine intelligence and human operator's power are both enhanced. Therefore, it achieves a high-level performance that neither could separately. This paper describes the basic exoskeleton concepts from biological system to man—machine intelligent systems. It is followed by an overview of the development history of exoskeleton-type systems and their two main applications in teleoperation and human power augmentation. Besides the key technologies in exoskeleton-type systems, the research is presented from several viewpoints of the biomechanical design, system structure modelling, cooperation and function allocation, control strategy, and safety evaluation.