Introduction to the Human Factors Special Issue on User-Centered Design for Exoskeleton

Benchmarking Wearable Robots: Challenges and Recommendations From Functional, User Experience, and Methodological Perspectives

“…Fortunately, the scientific community has already addressed some of these issues in the past two decades: hundreds of studies have explored the biomechanical, physiological, and psychological implications of the interaction between humans and wearable robots (WRs) (Beckerle et al, 2017b(Beckerle et al, , 2019Pinto-Fernandez and Torricelli, 2020). This has been a multidisciplinary endeavor, which has resulted not only in scientific evidence and better robotic prototypes, but also in a plethora of potentially useful evaluation methods and protocols (Ghillebert et al, 2019;Ármannsdóttir et al, 2020;Davis et al, 2020). If well-organized and appropriately conveyed to the relevant users, a careful selection of these methods can become the foundation of a unified and standardized benchmarking ecosystem for WRs.…”

Challenges and solutions for application and wider adoption of wearable robots

“…The mentioned size/weight issues typical of stiff designs have motivated a growing number of research groups to adopt methods from the field of industrial design to truly understand user needs and design exoskeletal solutions tailored to the specific application (Schmidt et al, 2017;Laffranchi et al, 2018). In most of these works, the main user needs that still need to be overcome are diverse: reduced donning time, lighter structures, higher autonomy of use, higher freedom of movement, increased comfort, and so forth (Gorgey, 2018;Wang et al, 2018;Fritz et al, 2019;Davis et al, 2020). Researchers and companies are addressing the needs with different solutions.…”

“…Indeed, many innovative works are driven by approaches that dedicate considerable effort to understanding user needs and proposing solutions that are tailored to specific end-user needs. For example, user-centered design techniques have been applied to increase adoption of exoskeleton technologies in applications such as medical (Almenara et al, 2017;Laffranchi et al, 2018;Meyer et al, 2019;Vassallo et al, 2020), industrial (Babič et al, 2017;Davis et al, 2020), and assistive (Wang et al, 2018). Such user-centered design approaches, which may additionally incorporate industrial and ergonomics design in the development process, could serve as useful and effective tools to foster the adoption of exoskeleton technology (Hill et al, 2017).…”

“…With continuing advancements in mechanical design, modern materials, improved power sources, miniaturization of electronics, increased rate of data processing, and better understanding of biomechanics, widespread adoption of wearable robots seems to be within reach. Nevertheless, despite all these scientific and technological advancements, many recent pioneering efforts to bring wearable robots to real-life applications were accompanied by mixed feelings of those who were supposed to benefit from them (Hensel and Keil, 2019;Davis et al, 2020;Mortenson et al, 2020).…”

Current Trends and Challenges in Pediatric Access to Sensorless and Sensor-Based Upper Limb Exoskeletons

“…It is widely accepted that a user-centered design approach is preferred to guarantee better acceptability and continuous use of exoskeletons [83]. This design approach generally involves the user in both the initial and iterative stages of the devices' development [84].…”