1. Textile-based soft wearable robots for walking assistance

▪ Developed first soft wearable robot for assisting hip abduction integrating principles from biomechanics, ergonomics, and industrial apparel design

▪ Developed and implemented control algorithms to detect user intent with body-worn IMU sensors and apply biologically-inspired assistance in synergy with the wearer

2. Biomechanics of human walking with soft wearable robots

▪ Designed and conducted human locomotion experiments to evaluate the performance of wearable

robots and users through analysis of biomechanical and physiological data

▪ Conducted qualitative user experience research through surveys for improving user perception and

defining device translation potential

3. Projects

▪ Hip abduction exoskeleton for patients with Knee Osteoarthritis

▪ Hip flexion assistance for elderly to enhance gait stability

▪ Ankle plantar flexion assistance for elderly and Parkinson’s Disease patients

1. Soft Robotics

▪ Developed a new method for soft and soft/rigid hybrid robot fabrication based on additive manufacturing principles to enable 3-dimensional structures

▪ Designed and modeled a controllable textile based pneumatic actuator

▪ Designed, fabricated, and evaluated control of novel pneumatic artificial muscle actuators, pneumatic elbow exoskeletons, pneumatic robotic manipulators, and deformable robots

1. Created a pneumatic powered soft robotic gripper to demonstrate the concept of soft robotics to middle school students.