Wearable Sensors Assess the Effects of Human-Robot Collaboration in Simulated Pollination

Pollination for indoor agriculture is hampered by environmental conditions, requiring farmers to pollinate manually. This increases the musculoskeletal illness risk of workers. A potential solution involves Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC) using wearable sensor-based human motion tracking. However, the physical and biomechanical aspects of human interaction with an advanced and intelligent collaborative robot (cobot) during pollination remain unknown. This study explores the impact of HRC on upper body joint angles during pollination tasks and plant height. HRC generally resulted in a significant reduction in joint angles with flexion decreasing by an average of 32.6 degrees (p ≤ 0.001) for both shoulders and 30.5 degrees (p ≤ 0.001) for the elbows. In addition, shoulder rotation decreased by an average of 19.1 (p ≤ 0.001) degrees. However, HRC increased the left elbow supination by 28.3 degrees (p ≤ 0.001). The positive effects of HRC were reversed when the robot was unreliable (i.e., missed its target), but this effect was not applicable for the left elbow. The effect of plant height was limited with higher plant height increasing right shoulder rotation but decreasing right elbow pronation. These findings aim to shed light on both the benefits and challenges of HRC in agriculture, providing valuable insights before deploying cobots in indoor agricultural settings.

Load Carriage Modes and Limb Crossing Patterns Altered Gait during Obstacle Negotiation

Personal and environmental factors both increase the likelihood of falling injuries while negotiating obstacles. Eighteen male participants (seven older, eleven young) were recruited to walk over an obstacle with and without loads on their hands to study the effects of age, load carriage modes, and limb crossing patterns on gait during obstacle negotiation. Participants initiated tasks with either their dominant or non-dominant leg. Step length (SL), toe clearance (TC), step velocity (V), and step width (SW) were extracted from four critical steps. Results showed that during obstacle negotiation (1) older adults had more TC than younger adults, (2) hand loads affected SL and TC, (3) gait parameters are dissimilar between the dominant limb and non-dominant limb.