Adaptation of hand exoskeletons for occupational augmentation: A literature review

Abstract

Limited research has been conducted on hand exoskeletons for an augmentative role. Hand and wrist exoskeletons for therapeutic purposes, however, are widely researched featuring existing technologies which can be adapted for occupational augmentation. This paper presents a literature review of upper-body exoskeleton systems researched within the past five years with a focus on the systematic comparison of augmentative or occupational design compared to other roles. Several important aspects of exoskeleton development for augmentation are identified and evaluated within this review. This includes actuation methods, which determine workspace and scalability, human-robot-interaction, thus ensuring affinity with the wearer, and use of modelling, design optimisation or generative design methods to arrive at effective solutions. This paper systematically reviews 108 upper limb exoskeleton systems and compares their design in three main aspects: The optimisation of their design, their physical features, and the data published to evaluate their effectiveness. Design optimisation in the exoskeleton field faces challenges in parameter choice, lack of integrated personalisation, complex models, computation time, and limited access to effective optimisation techniques. Although there are no perfect combinations of design features, observable trends suggest certain choices are more viable and efficient. The wide range of contemporary hand exoskeleton systems indicates both potential for diverse form factors and a need for further development to converge on a concise solution like that of shoulder exoskeletons.