Design of customized assistive technology for the physically challenged

The paper focuses on development of assistive technology to support human motion requirements arising due to concerns regarding the aging society globally. Specific tasks needed for realizing this include the study of human biomechanics, how individual joints and combination of joints are controlled to achieve various living motions and how such motions can be supported by external wearable exoskeletons to enhance individual capabilities so that elderly persons can stay living on their own homes independently with good quality of life. A human- centric design approach is presented so that such systems can be worn for long duration to support normal daily living motions. The knee and hip joints are studied and specialized mechanisms are realized to support motions such as sit-to-stand/stand-to-sit transfers and straight walking.