State-of-the-art research in robotic hip exoskeletons: A general review

Abstract

Ageing population is now a global challenge, where physical deterioration is the common feature in elderly people. In addition, the diseases, such as spinal cord injury, stroke, and injury, could cause a partial or total loss of the ability of human locomotion. Thus, assistance is necessary for them to perform safe activities of daily living. Robotic hip exoskeletons are able to support ambulatory functions in elderly people and provide rehabilitation for the patients with gait impairments. They can also augment human performance during normal walking, loaded walking, and manual handling of heavy-duty tasks by providing assistive force/torque. In this article, a systematic review of robotic hip exoskeletons is presented, where biomechanics of the human hip joint, pathological gait pattern, and common approaches to the design of robotic hip exoskeletons are described. Finally, limitations of the available robotic hip exoskeletons and their possible future directions are discussed, which could serve a useful reference for the engineers and researchers to develop robotic hip exoskeletons with practical and plausible applications in geriatric orthopaedics.The translational potential of this articleThe past decade has witnessed a remarkable progress in research and development of robotic hip exoskeletons. Our aim is to summarize recent developments of robotic hip exoskeletons for the engineers, clinician scientists and rehabilitation personnel to develop efficient robotic hip exoskeletons for practical and plausible applications.

Exploring the Potential of Emerging Technologies to Meet the Care and Support Needs of Older People: A Delphi Survey

“…On the other hand, technologies that did not reach consensus, such as exoskeletons and VR/MR/AR, or reached it in a few domains, such as robotics, appear to have more technical and potential acceptability issues. For example, in line with previous research [ 53 , 54 , 55 ], the qualitative findings reported that exoskeletons and new drug delivery mechanisms currently face technical challenges hindering their successful integration into real life. Similarly, this study reported, like [ 56 ] and [ 57 ], that robotic systems are still limited in their functionality, which could result in failure to meet older people’s expectations of robots.…”

“…Improving complex interactions with conversational technologies, such as chatbots, voice activated devices and robotics, is another open challenge for the R & D community [ 24 , 56 , 66 ], which could influence older people’s experiences with these technologies, particularly in the social and psychological support domains. Moreover, according to experts in this study and in line with [ 54 , 55 , 68 ], evidence around the effectiveness of some technologies in psychological and health-related domains, such as VR/AR/MR and new drug delivery mechanisms, is still limited. Additionally, most of the potential applications identified in the self-care and access to healthcare domains were simple tasks, such as prompting medications and remote monitoring.…”

Methodology for a Task-Specific and Personalised Development of an Initial Exoskeleton Design

“…A common understanding is the fact that a technical exoskeleton is worn by the user or attached to him. Some authors continue this idea and limit the term exoskeleton to anthropomorphic devices (Herr, 2009;Perry et al, 2007;Chen et al, 2020). If defined in this way, it emphasises the characteristic that exoskeletons follow the movements of the wearers' limbs and joints in a parallel way.…”

Study to Increase the TRL of Exoskeleton ERMIS Based on a Methodology to the Identification of Real Performance Parameters

“…One of these devices is an exoskeleton, which is a robotic system that adheres externally to the human body to perform specific functions; their main characteristic is their high dependency on the movements of the joints and extremities of the human body. A person uses these systems in such a way that the structure of the exoskeleton leads to the direct transfer of mechanical energy [9,14].…”