Overview and challenges for controlling back-support exoskeletons

Exoskeletons were recently proposed to reduce the risk of musculoskeletal disorders for workers. To promote adoption of active exoskeletons in the workplace, control interfaces and strategies have to be designed that overcome practical problems. Open challenges regard sensors invasiveness and complexity, accurate user’s motion detection, and adaptability in adjusting the assistance to address different tasks and users. Focusing on back-support exoskeletons, different control interfaces and strategies are discussed that aim at automatically driving and modulating the assistance, according to the activity the user is performing.