Human Augmentation and Exoskeleton Systems in Berkeley

Human–robot integration, in particular human augmentation, outlines the future of robotics. Although autonomous robotic systems perform remarkably in structured environments (e.g. factories), integrated human–robotic systems are superior to any autonomous robotic systems in unstructured environments that demand significant adaptation. In our research work at Berkeley, we have separated the technology associated with human power augmentation into lower extremity exoskeletons and upper extremity exoskeletons. The reason for this was two-fold: firstly, we could envision a great many applications for either a stand-alone lower or upper extremity exoskeleton in the immediate future. Secondly, and more importantly for the division is that the exoskeletons are in their early stages, and further research still needs to be conducted to ensure that the upper extremity exoskeleton and lower extremity exoskeleton can function well independently before we can venture an attempt to integrate them. With this in mind, we proceeded with the designs of the lower and upper extremity exoskeleton separately, with little concern for the development of an integrated exoskeleton. This article first gives a description of the upper extremity exoskeleton efforts and then will proceed with the more detailed description of the lower extremity exoskeleton.