Abstract
Wearable robots and exoskeletons are relatively new technologies designed for assisting and augmenting human motor functions. Due to their different possible design applications and their intimate connection to the human body, they come with specific ethical, legal, and social issues (ELS), which have not been much explored in the recent ELS literature. This paper draws on expert consultations and a literature review to provide a taxonomy of the most important ethical, legal, and social issues of wearable robots. These issues are categorized in (1) wearable robots and the self, (2) wearable robots and the other, and (3) wearable robots in society.
Highlights
Wearable robots (WRs), including robotic exoskeletons and orthoses, are an emerging technology designed to augment, train, or supplement motor functions (Greenbaum 2015a)
Building on expert consultations and a litera‐ ture review, our aim in this paper is to provide a taxonomy of the most relevant ELS issues pertaining to WRs
We have shown that despite their evident complexity, there is com‐ paratively little attention given to ELS reflection about Wearable Robots, and have argued that this is a gap that deserves to be filled, both for theoretical and practical reasons
Summary
Wearable robots (WRs), including robotic exoskeletons and orthoses, are an emerging technology designed to augment, train, or supplement motor functions (Greenbaum 2015a) These devices are integrated parts of human motor func‐ tioning, and are constructed of typical hardware (actuators and sensors) and soft‐ ware (control algorithms) components (CA16116 2017). Worn over cloth‐ ing, they are ‘mechanical devices that are essentially anthropomorphic in nature, ‘worn’ closely fitting the user’s body, and work in concert with the operator’s movements’ (Dollar and Herr 2008; Herr 2009). Their interaction with humans is not exclusively physical; it ‘ includes cognitive aspects ... It should be noted that prostheses have been understood as WRs as well (Bergamasco and Herr 2016, p. 1876)
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