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

2025-02-18

AI Summary

Current human-computer interaction (HCI) research lacks accessible, rapid-prototyping tools for exoskeleton robots, hindering efficient exploration and customization of interactive behaviors. To address this gap, we introduce ExoKit: a low-cost, modular, and fabricable shoulder-elbow exoskeleton prototyping kit designed specifically for novice roboticists. Its core innovation is the first HCI-oriented exoskeleton interaction abstraction layer, providing a unified functional API and cross-platform programming interfaces—including CLI, GUI, Processing library, and microcontroller firmware—thereby substantially lowering the barrier to interactive development. Evaluated through two user studies and diverse application scenarios, ExoKit significantly improves beginners’ performance in interaction design efficiency, behavioral flexibility, and wearable adaptability. By bridging HCI principles with exoskeleton engineering, ExoKit fills a critical tooling void at their intersection.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices
• Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot Interaction
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Simulating Human Behavior

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems

Abstract

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.

Problem

• Rapid prototyping of arm-based exoskeletons
• Lack of accessible human-exoskeleton interaction tools
• Simplified programming for novice roboticists

Innovation

• Modular hardware for exoskeletons
• Functional interaction abstractions
• User-friendly programming interfaces