Designing User-Specific Soft Robotic Wearable Muscular Interfaces with Iterative Simulation

Abstract

Wearable robots provide a unique opportunity for exosuits to stimulate enhanced stability and strength. The problem is creating an exoskeleton suit for users that is powerful, but lightweight, portable, and accessible for different body shapes. The actuators' position to control the suit's movement dramatically affects how much force an exoskeleton suit can exert. In this preliminary paper, we present a simulation approach for finding optimal actuation positions towards a bio-inspired exoskeleton. This modular approach leads towards custom design of actuator positioning based on bodily measurements. We discuss our approach through modeling a soft exosuit designed for upper- extremity movement.