*3.3. Manufacturing*

The prototype is manufactured using 3D printing technology. In this case, the FDM (fused filament manufacturing) is the preferred 3D printing method. The material used for all parts is standard PLA (polylactic acid). The reason for choosing this material is the fact that it is biodegradable, eco-friendly, and it is easy to use in almost all 3D printers.

**Figure 7.** 3D-manufactured parts of the exoskeleton assembly.

The manufactured and assembled exoskeleton parts, as seen in Figure 7, were made on three separate 3D printers, two of which were Makerbot clones, while the third was a Whanhao i3 Plus. As with any prototyping process, the design had several iterations due to the optimization of the mechanical design.
