A pilot study investigating motor adaptations when learning to walk with a whole-body powered exoskeleton

Park, Hanjun; Kim, Sunwook; Nussbaum, Maury A.; Srinivasan, Divya

doi:10.1016/j.jelekin.2023.102755

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…While there is early research exploring human-machine synchrony, its antecedents and outcomes ( Fujiwara et al, 2022 ), this is the first paper to look at interaction adaptation and synchrony that results in shared control over a human body. It is worthwhile to note that there are a few recent papers examining physical an/or cognitive adaptation with an exoskeleton (e.g., Park et al, 2023 ; Tyagi et al, 2023 ), however, these studies did not encompass a shared-control perspective. This study also shows that this shared control has implications for an individual’s assessment of agency, which aligns with previous research on perceptions of agency in human-machine relationships ( Ciardo et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Expert participants participated in one 2.5-h session and novice participants performed five 2.5-h sessions of simulated tasks, namely, walking, lifting, and transporting objects, pushing a cart, force-reproduction, and repetitive target-tapping while wearing the exoskeleton (See Park et al, 2023 for a more detailed explanation of study design and tasks). The sessions took place on separate days and the multiple sessions spanned across two to 3 weeks.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sensemaking, adaptation and agency in human-exoskeleton synchrony

Wilkenfeld,

Kim,

Upasani

et al. 2023

Front. Robot. AI

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Introduction: Wearable I robots such as exoskeletons combine the strength and precision of intelligent machines with the adaptability and creativity of human beings. Exoskeletons are unique in that humans interact with the technologies on both a physical and cognitive level, and as such, involve a complex, interdependent relationship between humans and robots. The aim of this paper was to explore the concepts of agency and adaptation as they relate to human-machine synchrony, as human users learned to operate a complex whole-body powered exoskeleton.Methods: Qualitative interviews were conducted with participants over multiple sessions in which they performed a range of basic functional tasks and simulated industrial tasks using a powered exoskeleton prototype, to understand their expectations of the human-technology partnership, any challenges that arose in their interaction with the device, and what strategies they used to resolve such challenges.Results: Analysis of the data revealed two overarching themes: 1) Participants faced physical, cognitive, and affective challenges to synchronizing with the exoskeleton; and 2) they engaged in sensemaking strategies such as drawing analogies with known prior experiences and anthropomorphized the exoskeleton as a partner entity in order to adapt and address challenges.Discussion: This research is an important first step to understanding how humans make sense of and adapt to a powerful and complex wearable robot with which they must synchronize in order to perform tasks. Implications for our understanding of human and machine agency as well as bidirectional coadaptation principles are discussed.

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