User-centered development and performance assessment of a modular full-body exoskeleton (AXO-SUIT)

This paper presents the design and preliminary performance assessment of a full-body assistive exoskeleton(AXO-SUIT)for older adults.AXO-SUIT is a system that consists of separate lower-body and upper-body modular exoskeletons,which can be combined to form a full-body system to provide flexible physical assistance as needed.The full-body exoskeleton comprises 27 degrees of freedom(dof),of which 17 are passive and 10 active.It can assist people in walking,standing,carrying and handling tasks.A user-centered design approach was adopted throughout the development of the exoskeleton.This paper describes the design process of AXOSUIT,involving a review of user needs,a kinematic and kinetic motion study,and innovative system design.Tests with the developed systems were conducted on selected end-user subjects,covering both performance evaluations at different levels and useability testing.End-user testing results show the effectiveness of the exoskeleton in providing flexible physical assistance.