The work which Christopher Nycz conducted at ETH Zurich last summer during his IGERT international experience has been accepted for publication in the journal Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) as well as for presentation at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Stockholm. The work focused on creating a portable remote actuation system for a hand exo-skeleton, intended for the assistance and rehabilitation of stroke patients. His work was successful in reducing, by half, the weight placed on the user’s hand of an exoskeleton originally developed by researchers at ETH Zurich and Kyushu University. The design relocated all of the motors and electronic components of the exoskeleton to a small back-pack actuation unit. This unit was lightweight, weighing only a pound and a half, and represents a substantial reduction in weight over previous similar devices. The work is expected to improve the practicality and acceptance of assistive devices.
This work was a successful collaboration between three international universities, each of which brought a particular area of expertise to contribute to a refined research platform. The opportunity to jointly publish in RA-L and present at ICRA this coming May has also been a great opportunity to present this work to the research community.