A Wearable Soft Exoskeleton for Shoulder Motion Assistance

Muscular dystrophy (MD) is a disease that causes progressive weakness and eventually loss of muscle mass. In the United States, there are approximately 250,000 patients with MD. Upper limb motility in particular is crucial to a patient’s independence, self-esteem, and quality of life, which also impacts caregivers. There is a need for soft, flexible upper-limb exoskeletons for patients to improve their motion and self-independence. In this study, we developed a soft exoskeleton for shoulder motion assistance without human muscle control. The proposed exoskeleton uses pneumatic actuators that can create a more comfortable and softer design. The entire design can achieve multiple degrees of freedom (DOFs) in the shoulder joint. In this paper, we report the design, fabrication, and testing of the soft exoskeleton.