ExoKit: A Toolkit for Rapid Prototyping of Interactions for Arm-based Exoskeletons

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Muehlhaus, Marie, Liggesmeyer, Alexander, Steimle, Jürgen
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Muehlhaus, Marie
Liggesmeyer, Alexander
Steimle, Jürgen
author_facet Muehlhaus, Marie
Liggesmeyer, Alexander
Steimle, Jürgen
contents Exoskeletons open up a unique interaction space that seamlessly integrates users' body movements with robotic actuation. Despite its potential, human-exoskeleton interaction remains an underexplored area in HCI, largely due to the lack of accessible prototyping tools that enable designers to easily develop exoskeleton designs and customized interactive behaviors. We present ExoKit, a do-it-yourself toolkit for rapid prototyping of low-fidelity, functional exoskeletons targeted at novice roboticists. ExoKit includes modular hardware components for sensing and actuating shoulder and elbow joints, which are easy to fabricate and (re)configure for customized functionality and wearability. To simplify the programming of interactive behaviors, we propose functional abstractions that encapsulate high-level human-exoskeleton interactions. These can be readily accessed either through ExoKit's command-line or graphical user interface, a Processing library, or microcontroller firmware, each targeted at different experience levels. Findings from implemented application cases and two usage studies demonstrate the versatility and accessibility of ExoKit for early-stage interaction design.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_12747
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle ExoKit: A Toolkit for Rapid Prototyping of Interactions for Arm-based Exoskeletons
Muehlhaus, Marie
Liggesmeyer, Alexander
Steimle, Jürgen
Human-Computer Interaction
Robotics
Exoskeletons open up a unique interaction space that seamlessly integrates users' body movements with robotic actuation. Despite its potential, human-exoskeleton interaction remains an underexplored area in HCI, largely due to the lack of accessible prototyping tools that enable designers to easily develop exoskeleton designs and customized interactive behaviors. We present ExoKit, a do-it-yourself toolkit for rapid prototyping of low-fidelity, functional exoskeletons targeted at novice roboticists. ExoKit includes modular hardware components for sensing and actuating shoulder and elbow joints, which are easy to fabricate and (re)configure for customized functionality and wearability. To simplify the programming of interactive behaviors, we propose functional abstractions that encapsulate high-level human-exoskeleton interactions. These can be readily accessed either through ExoKit's command-line or graphical user interface, a Processing library, or microcontroller firmware, each targeted at different experience levels. Findings from implemented application cases and two usage studies demonstrate the versatility and accessibility of ExoKit for early-stage interaction design.
title ExoKit: A Toolkit for Rapid Prototyping of Interactions for Arm-based Exoskeletons
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.12747