Exploring Neuroergonomic Fit of Passive Exoskeletons during Manual Handling Tasks

摘要

Approximately 40 percent of the work-related musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are low back injuries. Recent advances in human-robotic cooperation, across the spectrum of passive assistance to powered augmentation, have shown strong potential to reduce MSD risks by reducing or transferring biomechanical loadings from targeted joints. However, exoskeletons could negatively impact users' gaits and postures, and significantly increase users' metabolic costs (Gregorczyk et al., 2010; Jin, Prado, & Agrawal, 2018). It has been shown that some industrial exoskeletons reduce loads on targeted parts of the body, such as shoulders, but increase loadings on other regions, such as spine (Picchiotti. Weston, Knapik, Dufour, & Marras, 2019; Weston, Alizadeh, Knapik, Wang, & Marras, 2018). Thus, the rapid application of exoskeletons and robotic interventions to the industry without proper ergonomic evaluations is likely to exacerbate current MSDs or introduce new risks to the workplaces such as cognitive overloads (NIOSH, 2018).