The Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton Project

In October 2003, the first functional load-bearing and energetically autonomous exoskeleton, called the Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton (BLEEX) was demonstrated, walking at the average speed of two miles per hour while carrying 75 pounds of load. The project, funded in 2000 by the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) tackled four fundamental technologies: the exoskeleton architectural design, a control algorithm, a body LAN to host the control algorithm, and an on-board power unit to power the actuators, sensors and the computers. This article gives an overview of the BLEEX project. 1 What is a Lower Extremity Exoskeleton? The primary objective of this project at U.C. Berkeley is to develop the fundamental technologies associated with design and control of energetically autonomous Lower Extremity Exoskeletons that augment human strength and endurance during locomotion. The first field-operational lower extremity exoskeleton at Berkeley (commonly referred to as BLEEX) i...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: ISER
• Authors: H. Kazerooni
• Keywords: Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton, Exoskeleton Architectural Design, ISER 2004, Lower Extremity Exoskeletons, Robotics