Haptic Cobot Exoskeleton: Concepts and Mechanism Design

Abstract

This paper presents a concept for a new type of haptic exoskeleton: REACH, the Robotic Exoskeleton with Advanced Cobot Haptics. This exoskeleton is the first ever concept for integrating cobot technology into a wearable exoskeleton device. This exoskeleton represents a significant improvement in haptic exoskeleton technology by providing high-performance haptic feedback to a user’s whole arm while at the same time guaranteeing the user’s safety. The overall design concept is presented, including the use of a spherical 3RRR parallel mechanism to implement the shoulder joint. The detailed design of the shoulder joint mechanism is then presented. The kinematic parameters of the shoulder joint are selected such that its range of motion matches the motion of a user’s shoulder while also avoiding collisions. In addition, to avoid singularities and maximize dexterity the mechanism design is optimized using the inverse condition number of the Jacobian matrix.