A Topology-Optimization-Based Design Methodology for Wearable Robots: Implementation and Application

Robotic-based human assistance is increasingly spreading both in clinical practice and in the industrial sector. The use of wearable robots, such as exoskeletons, is considered one of the most promising applications since it allows for merging human flexibility and creativity with machine endurance. Such devices shall be comfortable and lightweight to be as transparent as possible to the user’s perception. At the same time, they shall also be stiff enough to drive body parts while bearing the exchanged forces efficiently. The gold standard methodology to achieve such results is the topology optimization, which, even if used mainly in structural optimization, is still relatively new to wearable robots. In this paper, the authors propose a topology-optimization-based design strategy suitable to be applied, if adapted case by case, to a generic design of a wearable system. The presented test case, used as a benchmark to assess the optimization-based design process, focuses on a hand exoskeleton made of aluminum alloy, resorting to an additive manufacturing process.