Design of a new exoskeletal mechanism for a shoulder joint of wearable robots: the wearable HEXA mechanism

To successfully incorporate human skills into a wearable robot, it is required to design its joint mechanism so that it does not interfere with the human skills. From this viewpoint, this paper first addresses six design goals for the joint mechanism. Based on the result of preliminary examination for two well-known mechanisms, a new 6-DOF mechanism referred to as the Wearable HEXA mechanism is proposed. This is based on the HEXA, which has been originally developed as a high-speed manipulator. Detail of its design process is given, and evaluation of a trial mechanism manufactured along the design process is also reported.