Motor Characteristics of Human Adaptations to External Assistive Forces

Abstract

Technology advancement has enabled the development of robotic exoskeletons that are portable, powerful, and sufficiently smart to be of practical use in the real world. These devices provide partial assistive forces that increase their user’s physical strength to better meet the demands of everyday life and have potential applications in various settings. Examples include helping older adults maintain their independence and preventing musculoskeletal injuries among factory workers. Although great strides have been made to improve the performance and usability of these devices, human characteristics and the way humans adapt to the external assistive forces from these devices are rarely explicitly considered in their development. A common assumption is that if the provided assistive forces are aligned with the intent of users, users can easily “switch off” their muscles and effectively utilize this assistive force. In this review, we demonstrate that human adaptations to external assistive forces can lead to inefficiencies or conflicts that decrease the effectiveness of robotic exoskeletons. We then discuss the motor characteristics of human adaptations to external assistive forces.