applied sciences Article A User Interface System with See-Through Display for WalkON Suit: A Powered Exoskeleton for Complete Paraplegics Hyunjin Choi 1,2,* , Byeonghun Na 1, Jangmok Lee 1 and Kyoungchul Kong 1,2 1 Angel Robotics Co. Ltd., 3 Seogangdae-gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul 04111, Korea;
[email protected] (B.N.);
[email protected] (J.L.);
[email protected] (K.K.) 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sogang University, 35 Baekbeom-ro, Mapo-gu, Seoul 04107, Korea * Correspondence:
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[email protected]; Tel.: +82-70-7601-0174 Received: 18 October 2018; Accepted: 14 November 2018; Published: 19 November 2018 Abstract: In the development of powered exoskeletons for paraplegics due to complete spinal cord injury, a convenient and reliable user-interface (UI) is one of the mandatory requirements. In most of such robots, a user (i.e., the complete paraplegic wearing a powered exoskeleton) may not be able to avoid using crutches for safety reasons. As both the sensory and motor functions of the paralyzed legs are impaired, the users should frequently check the feet positions to ensure the proper ground contact. Therefore, the UI of powered exoskeletons should be designed such that it is easy to be controlled while using crutches and to monitor the operation state without any obstruction of sight. In this paper, a UI system of the WalkON Suit, a powered exoskeleton for complete paraplegics, is introduced. The proposed UI system consists of see-through display (STD) glasses and a display and tact switches installed on a crutch for the user to control motion modes and the walking speed.