It will also have smart sensors to help with strength and mobility.
A team from the Beijing Machine and Equipment Institute – China’s version of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory – said the smart sensors could predict movements by monitoring electrical signals in a person’s muscles.
Led by senior engineer Hu Yuanyuan, the team reported their progress on the exoskeleton in Chinese peer-reviewed journalIn the paper, they said the smart sensors would allow the exoskeleton system to respond to the intentions of the user “within 0.1 second – good enough to meet the practical needs of astronauts by providing force assistance precisely on demand”.
The timing of assistance when using an exoskeleton is important for how useful it is because a delay could have the opposite effect and add more burden on the joints. The system uses an algorithm to measure the signals and accurately predict the starting point of motion intention. It has flexible sensors – a 4x4 electrode array – that fit more closely to the body than flat electrodes.