A Distributed Pressure Sensor to Measure Human-Machine Interaction in Lower-Limb Exoskeletons

—We present two generations of distributed pressure sensors used in human-machines interfaces of lower limb exoskeletons. These sensors are based on a mechano-opto-electronic transduction principle. The first generation was tested with LOPES exoskeleton, the second one, a digital system with an higher resolution, was preliminary tested with the LOKOMAT® exoskeleton. The results show that these sensors can be used to monitor the human-robot interaction in a lower limb exoskeleton during gait tasks.