Wang Q, Shi P, He C, Yu H. Design and evaluation of a parallel mechanism for wearable lumbar support exoskeleton.
Work 2023;
76:637-651. [PMID:
36872816 DOI:
10.3233/wor-211381]
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Abstract
BACKGROUND
Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) are a serious problem, and manual material handling (MMH) tasks remain common in most industries. Thus, a lightweight and active exoskeleton is needed.
OBJECTIVE
A facile, convenient, multifunctional, wearable lumbar support exoskeleton (WLSE) was proposed to relieve the muscular tension and fatigue especially in the way of WMSDs.
METHOD
Based on the screw theory and virtual power principle, the parallel structure was used as the scheme choice for selecting suitable actuators and joints. The exoskeleton, which was characterized by high adaptability and complied with human motion, included branch unit, mechanism branch units, control units and sensors. Furthermore, using surface electromyography (sEMG) signal evaluation, an experiment which contains several tests was designed to evaluate whether WLSE had effect on supporting and reliving muscular fatigue while lifting-up different weight of objects under wearing without traction (T1) and wearing with traction (T2).
RESULTS
Data collected were analyzed statistically by the two-way ANOVA. It showed that the RMS of sEMG was obviously reduced while carrying the heavy objects with WLSE under T2, and the MF values always performed the decreasing trend in T2/T1.
CONCLUSION
This paper proposed a facile, convenient, multifunctional WLSE. From the results, it was concluded that the WLSE was significantly effective in reliving the muscle tension and muscle fatigue while lifting to prevent and treat WMSDs.
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