3D Printing Offers Paraplegics New Hope to Walk Again

This is where 3D printing is crucial to the design as it offers ease of creating complex and custom contoured parts compared to traditional methods. 3D Systems printed the complex tailor-made parts from the scans that would be the connection between Boxtel and the robotics, with the main focus being on both comfort and safety. 3D printing offers such complexity that the suit was designed to minimize perspiration by allowing Boxtel's skin to breathe and was made in a mere 3 months, a much quicker time than one would expect to produce something from traditional methods with such customized features.

EksoBionics then provided the sophisticated mechanical actuators and controls that produce the mechanical movement. There are currently a number of different methods of control for the exoskeleton. Users can actuate their steps either with buttons on the accompanying crutches or walker, by moving their hips or by using weight shift with the initiation of forward leg movement, thus, offering solution to people with various degrees of disability.

3D printing is continuously unchaining the shackles of difficulties found in traditional manufacturing methods and it has now offered a step forward in the comfort and safety between humans and robotic exoskeletons and a promising hope for the future of paraplegic and disabled people to walk once again.