US EditionWorld's First Underwater Exoskeleton Cuts Air Use by 23%
The device reduces divers' air consumption by 22.7% and muscle activation by about 21%, aiming to extend dive time and improve safety in marine tasks.
- On November 17, Professor Wang Qining's research team at Peking University developed the world's first portable underwater knee exoskeleton, cutting air consumption by 22.7% in tests with six experienced divers.
- Covering 71% of Earth's surface, the ocean demands much more energy for movement, limiting divers' endurance, while adapting wearable exoskeletons underwater has been difficult due to biomechanical constraints.
- Using motion sensors and force-based control, the bilateral cable-driven knee exoskeleton provides real-time assistive torque, reducing quadriceps activation by 20.9% and calf activation by 20.6% in tests with six experienced divers.
- By lowering divers' oxygen use and muscle effort, the system could extend dive duration, improve safety and reduce fatigue, with applications in marine research, underwater construction and diver training.
- The findings, published on October 14, 2025 in IEEE Transactions on Robotics, provide peer-reviewed validation and extend the wearable robotics field into future assistive underwater devices.
9 Articles
9 Articles
Innovative underwater exoskeleton boosts diving efficiency
A research team led by Professor Wang Qining from the School of Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics, Peking University, has developed the world's first portable underwater exoskeleton system that assists divers' knee movement, significantly reducing air consumption and muscle effort during dives.
PKU Breakthrough: Innovative Underwater Exoskeleton Boosts Diving Efficiency资源 63
Peking University, November 17, 2025: A research team led by Professor Wang Qining from the School of Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics, Peking University, has developed the world’s first portable underwater exoskeleton system that assists divers’ knee movement, significantly reducing air consumpt...
Wearable Robots for Human Underwater Movement Ability Enhancement: A Survey
Underwater robot technology has shown impressive results in applications such as underwater resource detection. For underwater applications that require extremely high flexibility, robots cannot replace skills that require human dexterity yet, and thus humans are often required to directly perform most underwater operations. Wearable robots (exoskeletons) have shown outstanding results in enhancing human movement on land. They are expected to ha…
An Underwater Lower-Extremity Soft Exoskeleton for Breaststroke Assistance
An underwater lower-extremity soft exoskeleton which could provide assistance to swimming motions and showed the feasibility of the proposed Powered Swimsuit in underwater motion assistance. This paper presents an underwater lower-extremity soft exoskeleton which could provide assistance to swimming motions. With this motivation, we designed an exoskeleton called Powered Swimsuit to assist the wearer in breaststroke with fins. The actuation syst…
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