Loss of mobility or balance resulting from neural trauma is a critical consideration in public health. Wearable robots (i.e. lower limb exoskeletons (LLEs)) are well-recognized as solutions for rehabilitation and assisted walking/balance, however clinical impact remains minimal. Imperial College London (Imperial) and Technical University of Munich (TUM) propose the development of an LLE custom fabricated for individual patients specifically tailored to their physiology and clinical needs. The LLE will include fully integrated sensors, actuators, and intelligent control drawing from the latest advances in lightweight technics (TUM) and intelligent sensory-motor control (Imperial). The project aims at the manufacturing of LLE components with the latest advances in rapid prototyping technics to enable production of a patient-specific LLE. The proposed project will address this through innovation in neurorobotics, gait analysis, customisation of the LEE geometry and integration of functionality in the lightweight structural components to reduce the amount of motor driven articulations, providing a potentially disruptive approach to the control and manufacture of medical exoskeletons. This program further aims at the creations of a unique infrastructure to fuse automated design, rapid prototyping, and intelligent sensor for LLE systems between TUM and Imperial as a basis for future research. Applications will target the development and prototyping of a two degree-of freedom system to prove the feasibility of the approach on stroke patients.

In the SMILE project, researchers from TUM and Imperial join forces to create a lower-limb exoskeleton for rehabilitation. TUM focuses on the hardware development. Currently, patient tailored exoskeleton knee frame and joint are being developed and manufactured using carbon composites. On the other hand, Imperial focuses on the software and machine learning. The algorithm developed can detect the intent of the patient using muscle signals during rehabilitation, in order to provide assist to the patient as needed.

Chih-Yu Chen, Leonard Freißmuth, Suat Mert Altug, David Colin, Matthias Feuchtgruber, Klaus Drechsler (2022): Non-Planar Slicing Method for Maximizing the Anisotropic Behavior of Continuous Fiber-Reinforced Fused Filament Fabricated Parts, in: ASME 2022 17th International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference. https://doi.org/10.1115/MSEC2022-78670.