Chinese space engineers are developing an exoskeleton suit to give astronauts a boost
- System uses smart sensors to predict movements by monitoring the electrical activity of muscles
- It does this with more than 90 per cent accuracy, says Beijing Machine and Equipment Institute team
China is working on an exoskeleton suit for astronauts that has smart sensors to help with strength and mobility, according to space engineers involved in the project.
A team from the Beijing Machine and Equipment Institute – China’s version of Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory – said the smart sensors could predict movements by monitoring electrical signals in a person’s muscles.
The accuracy of these predictions was more than 90 per cent, higher than that of a similar exoskeleton for astronauts developed by Nasa a decade ago.
Led by senior engineer Hu Yuanyuan, the team reported their progress on the exoskeleton in Chinese peer-reviewed journal Manned Spaceflight in June.
In the paper, they said the smart sensors would allow the exoskeleton system to respond to the intentions of the user “within 0.1 second – good enough to meet the practical needs of astronauts by providing force assistance precisely on demand”.
Traditional spacesuits have high joint resistance that restricts movement. Exoskeletons can improve the situation but the sensors they use do not usually work in the low-gravity conditions of space, the team said.
Nasa’s X1 robotic exoskeleton uses a joint encoder as a sensor for motion intention, which “has apparent response lags that harmed user experience”, according to Hu.