The aging population and the high incidence of neurological disorders have driven an increasing demand for lower-limb motor dysfunction rehabilitation. Traditional rehabilitation methods suffer from limitations such as low efficiency and a lack of personalization. Lower-limb rehabilitation exoskeleton robots have emerged as a critical solution, with human–robot intelligent fusion serving as the core theoretical framework and technological pathway for performance enhancement. From the unique perspective of human–robot intelligent fusion, this paper systematically reviews the application and recent advances of artificial intelligence in three key aspects—intention perception, intelligent control, and human–robot integration—based on a layered architecture of “fusion perception, fusion decision-making, and fusion execution”. The definition, connotations, and realization mechanisms of human–robot intelligent fusion are clarified. Furthermore, this review analyzes the fusion mechanisms, applicable scenarios, and technical characteristics of different AI technologies and summarizes the human–robot intelligent fusion modes and clinical application status of representative products such as EksoNR, MyoSuit, and AiLegs. In addition, key challenges are identified from the perspectives of fusion generalization capabilities, the trade-off between real-time performance and robustness, algorithm interpretability, and multimodal deep fusion mechanisms. This paper provides a systematic theoretical reference and technical roadmap for establishing a unified human–robot intelligent fusion framework for lower-limb rehabilitation exoskeletons.
Pang et al. (Sat,) studied this question.