ExosCE: A legal-based computational system for compliance with exoskeletons’ CE marking

Abstract

Wearable robots are devices intended to improve the quality of users’ life by augmenting, assisting, or substituting human functions. Exoskeletons are one of the most widespread types of wearable robots, currently used extensively in medical applications (and also for industrial, assistive, or military purposes), thus governed by regulations for medical devices and their conformity assessment. On top of that, manufacturers must also specify if their exoskeletons can be categorized as machines and, therefore, additionally apply a number of requirements mandated from machinery regulations. This work focuses on capturing both the abovementioned requirements enacted by the Medical Devices Directive 2017/745 and the Machinery Directive 2006/42 into a single framework. It formalizes into Rules the Conformity Assessment procedures regarding the marketability of exoskeletons indicated by the CE marking (“Conformité Européene”). These Rules, expressed in the Positional-Slotted Object-Applicative (PSOA) RuleML code, were complemented by representative Facts based on real-life cases of commercialized exoskeletons. Additional Exoskeletons Facts can be included by users from other forms (such as MS Excel) and translated into the PSOA RuleML code through the provided Python script. The open-source Exoskeletons’ CE mark (ExosCE) Rules KB was tested by querying in the open-source PSOATransRun system. The ExosCE Rules prototype can assist in the compliance process of stakeholders and in the registration of exoskeletons with a CE mark.

Keywords

• wearable robots
• exoskeletons
• conformity assessment
• ce marking
• psoa ruleml