A Hybrid Upper-Arm-Geared Exoskeleton with Anatomical Digital Twin for Tangible Metaverse Feedback and Communication

The pandemic coincided with rapid advancements in virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) in healthcare. The idea of virtually replicating the real world and its associated experiences has garnered significant attention under the newly coined term "metaverse." The metaverse serves as a communication platform that integrates physical and virtual experiences. However, the lack of physical interaction between users and virtual environments remains an obstacle. This study introduces a hybrid upper-arm-geared exoskeleton system that combines an anatomical digital-twin model with tangible VR torque feedback and an MR remote healthcare monitoring in a musculoskeletal interface device format. The device employs a dual epicyclic geared motor actuator capable of exerting torque feedback. It derived torque profiles that simulate physical interactions with hysteretic damping in the virtual environment. An anatomical digital twin model is also incorporated into the fabricated device in an MR format and assessed the device's performance using electromyogram and thermographic sensors. In addition, it evaluated haptic fidelity and versatility as an immersive metaverse wearable and performed support vector machine-based analysis for motion feature classification. It believes this approach has the potential to be highly beneficial for providing tangible metaverse feedback and communication combined with a human-informed digital-twin model for remote healthcare monitoring in the postpandemic era. The rapid advancements in virtual and mixed reality (VR and MR) technologies in healthcare have highlighted the potential of metaverse platforms blending physical and virtual experiences. This study presents a hybrid upper-arm guided exoskeleton system combining an anatomical digital-twin model, tangible VR torque feedback, and MR remote healthcare monitoring, highlighting its potential for tangible metaverse interactions and remote healthcare applications.image