Abstract
The new technological advances opened widely the application field of robots. Robots are moving from the classical application scenario with structured industrial environments and tedious repetitive tasks to new application environments that require more interaction with the humans. There is an increased interest to conceive wearable robotic systems that cooperate with the human body to achieve control of movement. It is in this context that the concept of Wearable Robots (WRs) and Soft Robots (SRs) has emerged. These robotic mechanisms have been applied in telemanipulation, man-amplifier, neuromotor control research, rehabilitation and to assist impaired human motor control. One of the most exciting and challenging aspects in the design of biomechatronics wearable robots is that the human takes a place in the design; this fact imposes several restrictions and requirements in the design of this sort of devices. In the next generation of these devices, the line separating the human and the robot will be fuzzier. This task will be focused on the work carried out in this field (mainly in the upper limb) at the Bioengineering Group, CSIC (Spain).