Closure to “Discussion of ‘A Review of Intent Detection, Arbitration, and Communication Aspects of Shared Control for Physical Human–Robot Interaction”’ (Losey, D. P., McDonald, C. G., Battaglia, E., and O'Malley, M.K., 2018, ASME Appl. Mech. Rev., 70(1), p. 010804)

In their discussion article [1] on our review paper [2], Professors James Schmiedeler and Patrick Wensing have provided an insightful and informative perspective of the roles of intent detection, arbitration, and communication as three pillars of a framework for the implementation of shared control in physical human–robot interaction (pHRI). The authors both have significant expertise and experience in robotics, bipedal walking, and robotic rehabilitation. Their commentary introduces commonalities between the themes of the review paper and issues in locomotion with the aid of an exoskeleton or lower-limb prostheses, and presents several important topics that warrant further exploration. These include mechanical design as it pertains to the physical coupling between human and robot, modeling the human to improve intent detection and the arbitration of control, and finite-state machines as an approach for implementation. In this closure, we provide additional thoughts and discussion of these topics as they...