NAU researchers release open-source exoskeleton framework

Researchers at Northern Arizona University, or NAU, hope to enable a future where people with disabilities can walk on their own with the help of robotic legs. The university released an open-source robotic exoskeleton to help accelerate development.

Developing these complex electromechanical systems is currently expensive and time-consuming, which likely stops a lot of research before it ever starts. But that may soon change: Years of research at NAU associate professor Zach Lerner’s Biomechatronics Lab has led to a comprehensive open-source exoskeleton framework. It could help overcome several huge obstacles for potential exoskeleton developers and researchers.

“Our project is important to the research community because it significantly lowers the barriers to entry,” Lerner said. “In a time of diminishing federal grant funding, open-source systems like OpenExo become increasingly critical for facilitating state-of-the-art research on robot-aided rehabilitation and mobility augmentation.”

Called OpenExo, the open-source system provides comprehensive instructions for building a single- or multi-joint exoskeleton, including design files, code, and step-by-step guides. It’s free for anyone to use.

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NAU tackles the challenges of developing exoskeletons

To be effective, exoskeleton must biomechanically help the person wearing it. The process of developing exoskeletons requires extensive trial, error, and adaptation to specific use cases.

These wearable systems also have many moving parts, different components, and system dependencies, requiring collaboration by experts in many types of engineering, computer science, and even physiology.

Lerner said OpenExo helps address all of these challenges because it lets new developers build on years of prior work, picking up where their predecessors left off.

Already, Lerner’s team has helped children with cerebral palsy keep up with their friends. It has also enabled patients with gait disorders and disabilities to optimize their rehabilitation. That research has obtained millions of dollars in grant money and launched a spin-off that brought a robotic ankle device to the market.

In addition, Lerner said that he and his students have also been awarded nine patents related to the development of these exoskeletons.

Lerner said he hopes to see research into this area take off through the use of OpenExo. “Exoskeletons transform ability,” he said. “There is nothing more fulfilling than working on technology that can make an immediate positive impact on someone’s life.”

Postdoctoral scholar Jack Williams is the paper’s first author. Other authors include two-time mechanical engineering (ME) alumnus Chance Cuddeback; ME postdoc Shanpu Fang; two-time ME alum Daniel Colley; ME student Noah Enlow; computer science alumnus Payton Cox; Lerner; and Paul Pridham, a former NAU ME postdoc who now is a research specialist at the University of Michigan.