Abstract
Wearable robots (WRs) are increasingly moving out of the labs toward real-world applications. In order for WRs to be effectively and widely adopted by end-users, a common benchmarking framework needs to be established. In this article, we outline the perspectives that in our opinion are the main determinants of this endeavor, and exemplify the complex landscape into three areas. The first perspective is related to quantifying the technical performance of the device and the physical impact of the device on the user. The second one refers to the understanding of the user's perceptual, emotional, and cognitive experience of (and with) the technology. The third one proposes a strategic path for a global benchmarking methodology, composed by reproducible experimental procedures representing real-life conditions. We hope that this paper can enable developers, researchers, clinicians and end-users to efficiently identify the most promising directions for validating their technology and drive future research efforts in the short and medium term.
Highlights
Performance evaluation is becoming an urgent issue in wearable robotics
Without clear and quantitative benchmarks, this rapidly expanding market runs the risk of spreading chaotically, losing sight of real users’ needs. This situation is aggravated by the fact that the application domains are rapidly expanding from the healthcare scenario toward industrial and logistic settings, characterized by a multitude of new functional goals and safety constraints (Gopura et al, 2016; Bogue, 2018). This multifaceted picture calls for a multidimensional approach that can guide developers in identifying the most efficient path to market introduction and survival, and users in identifying the Benchmarking Wearable Robots best solution according to their unique abilities, desires, expectations, and needs
The scientific community has already addressed some of these issues in the past two decades: hundreds of studies have explored the biomechanical, physiological, and psychological implications of the interaction between humans and wearable robots (WRs) (Beckerle et al, 2017b, 2019; Pinto-Fernandez and Torricelli, 2020)
Summary
Performance evaluation is becoming an urgent issue in wearable robotics. The community strongly needs reliable and replicable testing methods to verify and compare the performance of the numerous and diverse exoskeletal and prosthetic solutions available (Windrich et al, 2016; Price et al, 2019; Torricelli and Pons, 2019). Without clear and quantitative benchmarks, this rapidly expanding market runs the risk of spreading chaotically, losing sight of real users’ needs This situation is aggravated by the fact that the application domains are rapidly expanding from the healthcare scenario toward industrial and logistic settings, characterized by a multitude of new functional goals and safety constraints (Gopura et al, 2016; Bogue, 2018). The third area highlights the importance of standardizing the experimental procedures, data collection and processing algorithms, in order to ensure a wide adoption of the same testing methods worldwide, fostering discussion and comparison among the different stakeholders in the field This perspective paper aims to provide a concise description of each of these three areas and thereby promote a common understanding of the meaning and relevance of WRs benchmarking. Such an effort may enable developers, researchers, clinicians, end-users, and any other relevant stakeholder to focus their efforts toward the most promising directions that should be addressed in the short and medium term
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