Wearable robots are mechatronic devices worn on the body to augment, assist, or restore human movement.

two big families are:

Rigid exoskeletons (orthoses): torque is transmitted through rigid links and joints aligned to the user’s anatomy (e.g., hip–knee–ankle frames). These dominate industrial assist and clinical gait training. Examples include EksoNR, ReWalk/ReWalk 7, Wandercraft Atalante X, Cyberdyne HAL, German Bionic Cray X.
Soft exosuits: fabric/textile interfaces route forces via cables/bowden transmissions; they target metabolic reduction and post-stroke assistance with minimal joint alignment constraints. Representative body of work from Harvard’s Wyss/SEAS shows clinically meaningful walking improvements post-stroke.

A separate (neighboring) category is powered prostheses (for amputees). Technically not “exoskeletons,” but the actuation, sensing, and control stack heavily overlaps (e.g., MIT’s bionic ankles/legs).

Medical & rehabilitation

Lifeward (formerly ReWalk Robotics): ReWalk Personal / ReWalk 7 for community/home ambulation after SCI; Medicare pathway and payment now established.
Ekso Bionics: EksoNR for inpatient rehab; broadest FDA indications (stroke, SCI, ABI, MS).
Wandercraft: Atalante X self-balancing gait trainer; FDA clearances for stroke and SCI T5–L5; EIB financing to scale.
Cyberdyne: HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) detects bio-electrical skin signals; portfolio cleared/approved across JP/EU/US; new small-size model approved in Japan (2025).
Fourier (Fourier Intelligence): ExoMotus rehab exoskeleton line; global deployments; partnerships in rehab robotics (also pivoting to humanoids, separate line).

Industrial & occupational ergonomics

German Bionic: Cray X / Exia powered back-assist with walking support, IP54, 40 V hot-swap batteries, cloud telemetry and AI-based ergonomic coaching.
Ottobock Exoskeletons (incl. suitX assets): Paexo passive shoulder/neck/back supports for overhead work and handling.
Levitate: AIRFRAME passive shoulder exoskeleton to reduce deltoid load in overhead tasks.
Comau: MATE-XT industrial passive shoulder exo (vendor literature; widely piloted in automotive manufacturing).
HeroWear: Apex textile back-assist exosuit (passive).
(Other active/passive vendors exist—Skelex, noonee’s Chairless Chair, etc.—but the above illustrate the current spread.)

Academic & clinical research hubs (illustrative)

Harvard Biodesign Lab / Wyss Institute: soft exosuits; multiple RCTs and clinical pilots in stroke rehab and mobility augmentation.
MIT Biomechatronics (Hugh Herr): powered ankle/leg prostheses, neural interfaces (AMI) translating to more natural gait.
University of Utah HGN Lab: powered ankle/foot prosthesis programs (DoD-funded).

Clinical rehab (inpatient/outpatient): EksoNR (stroke/SCI/ABI/MS); Wandercraft Atalante X (stroke + SCI T5–L5, self-balancing, powered ankles); Cyberdyne HAL (bio-electrical intent capture; multiple indications across JP/EU/US); Fourier ExoMotus (rehab portfolio).

Personal/home ambulation: Lifeward ReWalk / ReWalk 7 (SCI; Medicare coverage pathway established).

Industrial ergonomics: German Bionic Cray X/Exia (powered); Paexo/MATE/AIRFRAME/HeroWear (passive).

Soft exosuits (research → translational): Harvard/Wyss and collaborators—hip/ankle assistance for gait restoration and metabolic reduction.

Industrial assist vs. clinical rehab: contrasting design targets

Dimension	Industrial Assist	Clinical Rehab
Primary goal	Reduce musculoskeletal load, injuries, fatigue	Restore gait, neuroplasticity, independence
Typical form	Back/shoulder passive or powered frames	Lower-limb powered exoskeletons
Control	Posture/lift detection, back/hip torque	State-based gait, assist-as-needed, balance
Safety	ISO/ergonomic risk reduction; IP, fall-arrest policies	FDA/CE medical device standards, therapist supervision
Data	Fleet analytics, OTA updates	Patient outcomes, EMR integration, clinical protocols

Core technical stack

1) Human–robot interfacing & biomechanics

Kinematic alignment & DOF selection: Hip/knee sagittal DOF provide the highest gait impact; ankle power is critical for push-off (hence powered ankles in Wandercraft and in bionic prostheses). Self-balancing exoskeletons add multi-axis ankle control to stabilize COM without canes/crutches.
Attachment & comfort: Load paths through pelvis/thigh shanks; softgoods distribute pressure to avoid hotspots and shear. Soft suits avoid rigid alignment but trade peak torque.

2) Sensing

Kinematics: joint encoders, IMUs; foot-contact via pressure insoles.
Physiology/Intent: EMG and bio-electrical skin signals (Cyberdyne HAL) to detect motor intent, useful when voluntary activation exists but torque is weak.
Environment: some industrial systems stream telemetry to the cloud for ergonomic analytics and OTA updates (e.g., German Bionic “On-Site Intelligence”, “Smart Safety Companion”).

3) Actuation & transmission

Electric motors + harmonic/planetary geartrains dominate for rigid frames; Bowden-cable winches common for soft suits (hip flexion/extension, ankle plantarflexion/dorsiflexion).
Back-assist exos: either powered back/hip torque (German Bionic Cray X/Exia) or passive springs (Ottobock Paexo Shoulder; Levitate AIRFRAME) to offload shoulders/back during overhead and repetitive tasks.

4) Control

Finite-state impedance control synchronized to gait phases for lower-limb; assist-as-needed policies in rehab (EksoNR) modulate torque as patient recovers.
Intent-based control with EMG/bio-electrical sensors (HAL) for voluntary movement amplification.
Self-balancing control (Atalante X) uses closed-loop whole-body stabilization to enable hands-free walking in clinical settings.

5) Power & compute

Li-ion packs; hot-swappable modules in industrial suits (Cray X uses 40 V swappable packs; IP54 ingress protection). Cloud connectivity for fleet analytics, usage, and safety monitoring.

Personalized ML-based wearable robot control improves impaired arm function | Nature Communications

Feature News | Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

A wearable robot that learns

Hyundai Wearable Robotics for Walking Assistance Offer a Full Spectrum of Mobility

he Central Advanced Research and Engineering Institute at Hyundai Motor Company develops future mobility technologies. Rather than provide conventional vehicle products to customers, this research center creates new mobility devices with a wide range of speeds for a variety of people, including the elderly and the disabled. As our society ages, there is a greater need for systems that can aid mobility. Thus, we are developing wearable exoskeleton robots with NI embedded controllers for the elderly and patients with spinal cord injuries to use.Hyundai wearable robotics are designed to offer users a better quality of life.The NI RIO technology provides Hyundai a powerful heterogeneous architecture in a small form factor to control their wearable robotics.Hyundai used CompactRIO to quickly implement and adjust to rapidly changing control requirements.

In the field of wearable robotics, physical interfacing between the human body and a robot causes various engineering issues with mechanical design, control architecture construction, and actuation algorithm design. The allowed space and weight for electrical devices is extremely limited because a wearable robot needs to be put on like a suit. Additionally, the overall control sampling rate of the robot should be fast enough that it does not impede human motions and can properly react to external forces. Also, many questions remain regarding human augmentation and assistance control algorithms for wearable robots, even though many of the endeavors of robotic researchers have resulted in successful performances of wearable robots. Therefore, our group mainly considered the following requirements for selecting a main controller for our wearable robots:

High-speed processing of data obtained from various types of sensors
Size and weight
Real-time data visualization for developing control algorithms
Connectivity to other smart devices to provide more convenient functions

System Configuration

The real-time control and FPGA hardware environment ensure reliability and stability by providing I/O that is compatible with various robotic control devices. For instance, in the process of building our wearable robots, the overall control architecture drastically changed several times due to the replacement of sensors or changes in the control communication method. However, the unique onboard combination of the real-time controller and FPGA features provided by NI products empowered our group to manage these changes promptly, which helped reduce our development period.

In addition, adopting the compact RIO technology helped us reduce the robot’s weight to less than 10 kg while maximizing battery efficiency through a low-power base system configuration.Figure 1. Wearable Robot System ConfigurationFigure 2. Real-time processing, offered by the CompactRIO platform, enabled Hyundai to address one of their greatest challenges–recognizing human intention.

Why We Chose LabVIEW

The number of sensors and actuators increases significantly to achieve more complex tasks in robotics, and the complexity of the control algorithms increases exponentially. Therefore, simultaneously processing all data from multiple sensors and sending instructions to multiple actuators becomes one of the most important challenges to address in robotics. LabVIEW supports concurrent visualization for intuitive signal processing for installed sensors on robots and further control algorithm design in the experimental stages. Lastly, NI products are expandable and compatible, so we can possibly use smart devices as user interfaces (UIs) in the future.Figure 3. LabVIEW Front Panel for Robot ControlFigure 4. LabVIEW Block Diagram for Robot Control

Wearable Robotics for Walking Assistance

Originally, the following types of wearable robots were built:

Hip Modular Exoskeleton—A modular robot that provides walking assistance to people with discomfort in the hip area
Knee Modular Exoskeleton—A modular robot that provides walking assistance to people with discomfort in the knee area
Life-Caring Exoskeleton—A modular robot that combines the hip and knee parts to provide walking assistance to the elderly or people with difficulties moving the lower half of their bodies
Medical Exoskeleton—A modular robot that combines the hip and knee parts to provide walking assistance to patients who do not have the ability to move the lower half of their bodies on their own

Figure 5. Hyundai Lower-Limb ExoskeletonsFigure 6. Concept of Modular Exoskeleton and Lower-Limb ExoskeletonFigure 7. Life-Caring Exoskeleton in Use

Following the demonstration of the wearable Life-Caring Exoskeleton for walking assistance for the elderly at NIWeek 2015, we unveiled a wearable Medical Robot for people with paraplegia, which was also designed using LabVIEW and CompactRIO. In a joint clinical demonstration with the Korea Spinal Cord Injury Association in January 2016, a paraplegic patient equipped with this Medical Robot succeeded in sitting down, standing up, and walking on flat ground. The patient who participated in this clinical trial is paralyzed in the lower half of the body (injury at 2nd and 3rd lumbar vertebrae) with motor and sensory paralysis, but could walk successfully with the assistance of the wearable Medical Robot after a short training. Building on this achievement and current progress in development, we expect to manufacture a lighter and better product with added functions by 2018, and begin mass production in 2020.

Taking Advantage of Internet of Things Technologies for Future Development

We have research plans for integrating smart devices into the UI to address future challenges. Currently, robots for people with lower body disabilities are designed to use crutches as wireless UIs for changing configuration, such as converting to walking, sitting, climbing or going down steps, or normal mode. Embedding smart devices into this kind of UI can help users conduct tuning of additional parameters including stride, time for taking one step, or depth/width for sitting on a chair. Also, data related to walking patterns or normal activity range is useful for treatment or rehabilitation. Rehabilitation experts or doctors can configure more advanced parameters, such as forced walking time or adjusting joint movement, to continue to use them for treatment.

We started to develop the next-generation exoskeleton robot based on wireless technology to make gait analysis possible. When someone wears this robot, it is possible to identify intention and walking status by collecting data from an area between the ground and the sole of the foot. Technology that transmits this data through wireless ZigBee communication is already in place. This technology can be further expanded now using Internet of Things (IoT) technology. In other words, you can send information acquired wirelessly to a robot to make it assist with the walker’s movements. In addition, gathering relevant data can help users identify a personal range of activities and conditions based on location, and that information can be integrated into the robot and lead to more comprehensive service. If a patient wears this robot for rehabilitation purposes, doctors can monitor patient and robot conditions during rehabilitation and deliver real-time training or adjustments to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of treatment, a good example of implementation of data information-based technology.

Author Information:

DongJin Hyun, PhD
Hyundai Motor Company
37, Cheoldobangmulgwan-ro
Uiwang-si, Gyeonggi-do 437-815
South Korea
Tel: +82 (031) 596 0920
mecjin@hyundai.com

https://exoskeletonreport.com/2016/05/hyundai-wearable-robot