A novel approach to simulating realistic exoskeleton behavior in response to human motion

Yao, Zhejun; Mir Latifi, Seyed Milad; Molz, Carla; Scherb, David; Löffelmann, Christopher; Sänger, Johannes; Miehling, Jörg; Wartzack, Sandro; Lindenmann, Andreas; Matthiesen, Sven; Weidner, Robert

doi:10.3390/robotics13020027

A novel approach to simulating realistic exoskeleton behavior in response to human motion

Publication date

2024-02-01

Document type

Forschungsartikel

Author

Yao, Zhejun

Mir Latifi, Seyed Milad

Molz, Carla

Scherb, David

Löffelmann, Christopher

Sänger, Johannes

Miehling, Jörg

Wartzack, Sandro

Lindenmann, Andreas

Matthiesen, Sven

Weidner, Robert

Organisational unit

Fertigungstechnik

DOI

10.3390/robotics13020027

URI

https://openhsu.ub.hsu-hh.de/handle/10.24405/19661

Publisher

MDPI

Series or journal

Robotics

ISSN

2218-6581

Periodical volume

13

Periodical issue

2

Article ID

27

Peer-reviewed

✅

Part of the university bibliography

✅

Funding(s)

Publikationsfonds der HSU/UniBw H

Language

English

Keyword

Exoskeleton model

Exoskeleton simulation

Human–exoskeleton interaction

Evaluation

Optimization

Human motion

Abstract

Simulation models are a valuable tool for exoskeleton development, especially for system optimization and evaluation. It allows an assessment of the performance and effectiveness of exoskeletons even at an early stage of their development without physical realization. Due to the closed physical interaction between the exoskeleton and the user, accurate modeling of the human–exoskeleton interaction in defined scenarios is essential for exoskeleton simulations. This paper presents a novel approach to simulate exoskeleton motion in response to human motion and the interaction forces at the physical interfaces between the human and the exoskeleton. Our approach uses a multibody model of a shoulder exoskeleton in MATLAB R2021b and imports human motion via virtual markers from a digital human model to simulate human–exoskeleton interaction. To validate the human-motion-based approach, simulated exoskeleton motion and interaction forces are compared with experimental data from a previous lab study. The results demonstrate the feasibility of our approach to simulate human–exoskeleton interaction based on human motion. In addition, the approach is used to optimize the support profile of an exoskeleton, indicating its potential to assist exoskeleton development prior to physical prototyping.

Description

This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Version

Published version

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