Assistive Gait Wearable Robots—From the Laboratory to the Real Environment

In recent decades, researchers have been able to develop intelligent assistive gait wearable robots (AGWR) capable of assisting humans in their activities of daily living (ADLs). These wearable robots have been developed to assist adults and elderly with mobility impairments, but also, to support children with motor disorders as a consequence of diseases. The reason for the rapid progress in AGWR is the advances in materials, sensor technology and computational intelligence achieved in laboratories across the globe. Unfortunately, despite the scientific and technological achievements, there exist many challenges that need to be overcome about the design, development and functionality of assistive robots. Also, there exist challenges in terms of computational intelligence methods, which are needed to make the assistive systems robust and reliable to work in indoor and outdoor environments, and on different terrains. These limitations along with lack of AGWR adaptability to the user affect the performance of wearable assistive robots, but also they reduce the acceptance, confidence and satisfaction of the individuals to wear the assistive robot on a daily basis. This chapter presents a description of wearable assistive devices, sensor technology and computational methods employed for activity recognition and robot control. Furthermore, the description of the essential parameters to achieve the user satisfaction, acceptance and usability of assistive robots is presented in this chapter.