Experimental Characterization of Active Joint for Trunk Exoskeleton

Wearable robotics is one of the Industry 4.0 pillars for performing tasks that cannot yet be fully automated. This category includes trunk exoskeletons, devices that can be worn directly by the user with the aim of partially reducing low-back muscular efforts and avoiding work-related injuries. Active exoskeletons allow a good support adaptability to suit user’s request, certifying the relevance of a control law able to modulate the assistance also compensating the disturbances. The aim of this study is to experimentally characterize active joints of a trunk exoskeleton prototype to obtain a model able to describe their real behaviour and non-linearities. This identification is essential to develop an adaptable and disturbance-free control law that ensures the flexible desired support.