Despite the increasing use of automation and digitalization in industrial workplaces, workers still have to handle heavy loads and have to perform strenuous, repetitive, long-term assembly tasks at head level or above, which may lead to degenerative musculoskeletal disorders. The growing trend towards wearable support systems has already resulted in a large number of exoskeletons being in research or commercially available. However, most of the support systems for industrial workplaces focus on the back and shoulders, but not the elbow joint. In a preliminary study, we presented a soft passive elbow exoskeleton, which was limited to static tasks, although dynamic support is necessary for most industrial tasks. Building upon that work, this paper presents an elbow exoskeleton that can be coupled to an existing shoulder exoskeleton. The developed prototype is designed to support the elbow flexion with a pneumatic actuator for industrial applications. The functionality of the prototype was tested on three male participants in one static and two dynamic tasks. The laboratory tests have shown that the exoskeleton reduced the mean muscular activity of the brachioradialis and biceps brachii in all tasks. Based on the results, the developed exoskeleton may potentially support the elbow flexion in industrial tasks, but further testing is needed to evaluate its biomechanical effects on the user.

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Development and Testing of an Elbow Exoskeleton Prototype with Pneumatic Actuation for Industrial Tasks

  • Samet Ersoysal,
  • Benjamin Reimeir,
  • Robert Weidner

摘要

Despite the increasing use of automation and digitalization in industrial workplaces, workers still have to handle heavy loads and have to perform strenuous, repetitive, long-term assembly tasks at head level or above, which may lead to degenerative musculoskeletal disorders. The growing trend towards wearable support systems has already resulted in a large number of exoskeletons being in research or commercially available. However, most of the support systems for industrial workplaces focus on the back and shoulders, but not the elbow joint. In a preliminary study, we presented a soft passive elbow exoskeleton, which was limited to static tasks, although dynamic support is necessary for most industrial tasks. Building upon that work, this paper presents an elbow exoskeleton that can be coupled to an existing shoulder exoskeleton. The developed prototype is designed to support the elbow flexion with a pneumatic actuator for industrial applications. The functionality of the prototype was tested on three male participants in one static and two dynamic tasks. The laboratory tests have shown that the exoskeleton reduced the mean muscular activity of the brachioradialis and biceps brachii in all tasks. Based on the results, the developed exoskeleton may potentially support the elbow flexion in industrial tasks, but further testing is needed to evaluate its biomechanical effects on the user.