  This paper presents a concurrent whole-body control (cWBC) for
human-exoskeleton systems that are tightly coupled at a Cartesian level (e.g.,
feet, hands, torso). The exoskeleton generates joint torques that i) cancel the
effects of gravity on the coupled system, ii) perform a primary task (e.g.,
maintaining the balance of the system), and iii) exploit the kinematic
redundancy of the system to amplify the forces exerted by the human operator.
The coupled dynamic system is demonstrated to be passive, as its overall energy
always goes dissipated until a minimum is reached. The proposed method is
designed specifically to control exoskeletons for power augmentation worn by
healthy operators in applications such as manufacturing, as it allows to
increase the worker's capabilities, therefore reducing the risk of injuries.
