Soft-exoskeleton suit To Restore Autonomous Locomotion
A soft, lightweight exoskeleton worn like a pair of pants could help people walk again
Many conditions, including spinal cord injury and stroke, can result in loss of lower-limb mobility, making walking impossible. For decades, there were very few options, if any, depending on the severity of the condition. More recently, integrated robotic exoskeletons have emerged as a promising way to partially restore function and help people walk again. However, most are heavy and cumbersome systems. Funded by the European Research Council, the STROLL project plans to develop a soft, wearable robotic exoskeleton akin to a pair of pants. It will harness advanced textile-based actuators, lower-body tactile sensors, and advanced locomotion control to restore the walking capability of patients with lower-body paralysis.
The grant can be found here.
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Publications
Guez, A., Baier, S., Berberich, N., Vaidyanathan, R., & Cheng, G. (2025, May). Beyond the Legs: Leveraging Trunk and Driving Muscle EMG to Improve Gait Model Predictions. In 2025 International Conference On Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR) (pp. 211-216). IEEE. 10.1109/ICORR66766.2025.11062995
Frey, J., Nassour, J., & Cheng, G. (2025). Modulating Stiffness and Shape of a Soft, Textile‐Based Structure Through Glass Transition of a Conductive Phase‐Changing Polymer. Advanced Materials Technologies, 2400996. https://doi.org/10.1002/admt.202400996
Geiger, L., Guadarrama-Olvera, J. R., & Cheng, G. (2025, January). Normative Safety Regulations for Collaborative Robots. In 2025 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SII) (pp. 707-714). IEEE. 10.1109/SII59315.2025.10871019
Nassour, J., Hühne, J. E., Lee, J. H., & Cheng, G. (2025, January). Soft Sensory Socks Measure Contact Forces During Locomotion. In 2025 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SII) (pp. 690-695). IEEE. 10.1109/SII59315.2025.10870930
Lu, Y., Amraouza, A., Peng, Y., Li, D., Nassour, J., & Cheng, G. (2025, January). Material-Driven Mechanical Programming of Soft Robotic Tentacles. In 2025 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SII) (pp. 684-689). IEEE. 10.1109/SII59315.2025.10871004
Nassour, J., Tacca, N., & Cheng, G. (2024, December). Textile-Based Soft Wearable Robots to Improve Quality of Life Across Wide Spectrum of Applications. In 2024 IEEE 21st International Conference on Smart Communities: Improving Quality of Life using AI, Robotics and IoT (HONET) (pp. 118-123). IEEE. 10.1109/HONET63146.2024.10822887
Guadarrama-Olvera, J. R., Kajita, S., Kanehiro, F., & Cheng, G. (2024, October). Contact Stability Control of Stepping Over Partial Footholds Using Plantar Tactile Feedback. In 2024 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) (pp. 14141-14147). IEEE. 10.1109/IROS58592.2024.10802686
Nassour, J., Pei, G., Menzel, N., Berberich, N., Gigl, S., Wilke, M., … & Cheng, G. (2024, September). Mri compatible valve enables fast actuation of soft hand exoskeleton in medical imaging. In 2024 10th IEEE RAS/EMBS International Conference for Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob) (pp. 1682-1687). IEEE. 10.1109/BioRob60516.2024.10719957
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About Us
The Institute for Cognitive Systems (ICS) deals with the fundamental understanding and creation of cognitive systems.
Prof. Dr. Gordon Cheng
Team Members
Dr.-Ing. habil. John Nassour
Dr.-Ing. Julio Rogelio Guadarrama Olvera
Dr.-Ing. Florian Bergner
M.Sc. Nicolas Berberich
Sabine Baier
M.Sc. Jin-Ho Lee
