The exoskeleton rehabilitation robot is a structural robot that uses the actuator to control, so as to construct a human–robot collaborative rehabilitation training system to realize the perception and decoding of patients and promotes the recovery of limb function and neural remodeling. This review focused on the synergistic advancement of physical and information interaction in exoskeleton rehabilitation robotics. This review systematically retrieved literature related to the synergistic advancement of physical and information interaction in exoskeleton rehabilitation robotics. Publications from 2011 to 2025 were searched for across the EI, IEEE Xplore, PubMed, and Web of Science databases. The included studies mainly covered the period from 2018 to 2025, reflecting recent technological progress. This article summarizes the collaborative progress of physical and informational interaction in exoskeleton rehabilitation robots. The physical and information interaction is manifested in the bionic structure, physiological information detection and information processing technology to identify human movement intention. The bionic structural design is fundamental to realize natural coordination between human and robot to improve the following of movements. The active participation and movement intention recognition accuracy are enhanced based on multimodal physiological signal detection and information processing technology, which provides a clear direction for the development of intelligent rehabilitation technology.

The flexible upper-limb exoskeleton robot (exosuit) is composed of fabrics, soft actuators and compliant force-transmitting structures, which provides assistance or rehabilitation training for the shoulders, elbows, wrists and hands. By realizing human–robot collaboration, this kind of system has the advantages of comfort, light weight and portability, thus promoting motor function recovery and neural plasticity. This review establishes a classification and comparison framework for flexible upper-limb exoskeletons based on the actuation modalities and systematically summarizes the research progress under different actuation modalities. The relevant literature published from 2015 to 2025 was retrieved from the EI, IEEE Xplore, PubMed and Web of Science databases. After screening according to the preset inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 64 original research papers meeting the criteria were finally included for analysis. According to the actuation modalities, the flexible upper-limb exoskeleton robot is classified, and all kinds of systems are summarized and compared. Motor–cable/tendon actuation and pneumatic/hydraulic actuation have advanced substantially and are approaching technical maturity for flexible upper-limb exoskeletons. Meanwhile, designs based on passive/hybrid mechanisms (e.g., elastic energy storage elements and clutches) and new intelligent material actuations are showing a diversified development trend. In the future, the development is expected to further focus on lightweight and compliance, and by integrating multimodal sensing and feedback control, motion intention recognition and human–robot interaction theories, actuation systems will be developed towards modularization, intelligence and high-power density, in order to achieve more comfortable, lighter and more effective flexible upper-limb exoskeleton systems.

The traditional external fixation has problems such as a single fixed dimension, limited application range, long fixation time, and heavy weight. A single-function external fixation is unable to meet the various needs of fracture fixation in scenarios involving a large number of injured patients. This paper proposes a reconfigurable-configuration comprehensive method based on a seven-link mechanism. A new type of reconfigurable external-fixation frame with multi-dimensional, multi-posture, and multi-fracture scenario applicability is formed, able to achieve rapid and stable external fixation for fractures in the femur, tibia, elbow joint, knee joint, and ankle joint. A reconfigurable mechanism configuration design is proposed based on the comprehensive configuration of the seven-link mechanism and the analysis of the working space. Human–fixator coupled biomechanical model is established, and the mechanical and stability performance of fractures under five reconfigurable configurations are analysed based on finite-element analysis. Compared with the corresponding single-function external-fixation frame in terms of performance, mechanics, and fixation time, a comparative experiment was finally conducted based on the cross-knee joint of dogs for verification. The results confirmed that the external fixation has the advantages of light weight, stable structure, multiple dimensions, multiple postures, and applicability to various fracture scenarios in addition to the fact that it shortens the fixation time significantly (< 10 min). Compared with other unilateral external fixation, the new external fixation is lighter in weight (weighing 950 g), with a fracture displacement of 3 mm, and the load is 274.2 N, the stiffness is 95.2 N mm−1, and the stability is higher than that of the unilateral external fixator (237.63 N, 72.4 N mm−1). When the relative rotation angle of the fracture end reaches 30°, the torque is 14.66 N m. This external fixation can be widely used in temporary fracture fixation in emergency medical scenarios.