A Bilateral Six Degree of Freedom Cable-driven Upper Body Exosuit

The demand for upper limb wearable robots has grown over the past decades across various fields for rehabilitative and assistive applications. While many of this kind have been developed and used in various applications, very few can achieve bimanual task assistance with multiple controlled degrees of freedom (DOF). A bilateral 6-DOF Cable-driven Upper Body Exosuit (CUBE) is presented in this work, designed to aid bimanual tasks via Bowden cable interface to transmit power from actuators placed on the torso to the cuffs on the upper and lower arms. Inertial measurement units (IMUs) and tension sensors are integrated to track the joint angles and cable tension, respectively, to control the position or force exerted through the suit. A preliminary evaluation was performed to assess how CUBE affects the user’s effort and performance during bimanual tasks. The results show a reduction in muscle activation from anterior deltoid, medial deltoid, and biceps femoris on both left and right body sides. The benefits of the current design are limited, and the controllers implemented are very basic and low level only, which must be further improved to promote efficient and robust human-robot interactions. Leveraging the current CUBE architecture, our next step is to realize more adaptive and optimal control schemes such as myoelectric and reinforcement learning controls.