More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/

research-article

Open access

A case study on occupational back-support exoskeletons versatility in lifting and carrying

Authors:

Tommaso Poliero,

Matteo Sposito,

Christian Di Natali,

Stefano Toxiri,

Francesco Draicchio,

Darwin G. Caldwell,

Vittorio Sanguineti,

Jesús OrtizAuthors Info & Claims

PETRA '21: Proceedings of the 14th PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments Conference

Pages 210 - 217

https://doi.org/10.1145/3453892.3453901

Published: 29 June 2021 Publication History

All formats PDF

Abstract

To prevent workers performing manual material handling from developing musculoskeletal disorders, occupational back-support exoskeletons are becoming more and more common in industrial scenarios. However, while their beneficial effects on weight lifting tasks are known, additional work is still needed to make them effective in assisting - or at least not hindering - other types of tasks, such as carrying. Therefore, the work presented here studies the effects that varying the assistive strategy according to the performed task, namely exoskeleton versatility, has on the efficacy and the dynamic fit of these devices. After presenting relevant metrics for this analysis, an exemplification of a single-subject case study is detailed. In this study XoTrunk, a back-support exoskeleton, is used to provide assistance during the execution of a complex task involving both lifting and carrying. Results show that exploiting versatility, the control strategy appears to be more natural and respectful of the subject’s movements.

References

[1]

SJ Baltrusch, JH Van Dieën, CAM Van Bennekom, and H Houdijk. 2018. The effect of a passive trunk exoskeleton on functional performance in healthy individuals. Applied ergonomics 72(2018), 94–106.

[2]

Don B Chaffin. 1969. A computerized biomechanical model–Development of and use in studying gross body actions. (1969).

[3]

Baojun Chen, Lorenzo Grazi, Francesco Lanotte, Nicola Vitiello, and Simona Crea. 2018. A real-time lift detection strategy for a hip exoskeleton. Frontiers in neurorobotics 12 (2018), 17.

[4]

Jan de Kok, P Vroonhof, J Snijders, 2019. Work-Related musculoskeletal disorders: prevalence, costs and demographics in the EU: European risk Observatory report. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union (2019).

[5]

Michiel P De Looze, Tim Bosch, Frank Krause, Konrad S Stadler, and Leonard W O’Sullivan. 2016. Exoskeletons for industrial application and their potential effects on physical work load. Ergonomics 59, 5 (2016), 671–681.

[6]

Christian Di Natali, Stefano Toxiri, Stefanos Ioakeimidis, Darwin G Caldwell, and Jesús Ortiz. 2020. Systematic framework for performance evaluation of exoskeleton actuators. Wearable Technologies 1(2020).

[7]

Lorenzo Grazi, Baojun Chen, Francesco Lanotte, Nicola Vitiello, and Simona Crea. 2019. Towards methodology and metrics for assessing lumbar exoskeletons in industrial applications. In 2019 II Workshop on Metrology for Industry 4.0 and IoT (MetroInd4. 0&IoT). IEEE, 400–404.

[8]

Marko Jamšek, Tadej Petrič, and Jan Babič. 2020. Gaussian Mixture Models for Control of Quasi-Passive Spinal Exoskeletons. Sensors 20, 9 (2020), 2705.

[9]

Bengt Jonsson. 1982. Measurement and evaluation of local muscular strain in the shoulder during constrained work. Journal of human ergology 11, 1 (1982), 73–88.

[10]

Axel S Koopman, Idsart Kingma, Gert S Faber, Michiel P de Looze, and Jaap H van Dieën. 2019. Effects of a passive exoskeleton on the mechanical loading of the low back in static holding tasks. Journal of biomechanics 83 (2019), 97–103.

[11]

Pamela V Moore and Arun Garg. 1995. Revised NIOSH equation for manual lifting: a method for job evaluation. AAOHN Journal 43, 4 (1995), 211–218.

[12]

Tommaso Poliero, Maria Lazzaroni, Stefano Toxiri, Christian Di Natali, Darwin Gordon Caldwell, and Jesus Ortiz. 2020. Applicability of an active back-support exoskeleton to carrying activities. Frontiers in Robotics and AI 7 (2020), 157.

[13]

Tommaso Poliero, Lorenza Mancini, Darwin G Caldwell, and Jesús Ortiz. 2019. Enhancing Back-Support Exoskeleton Versatility based on Human Activity Recognition. In 2019 Wearable Robotics Association Conference (WearRAcon). IEEE, 86–91.

[14]

Tommaso Poliero, Stefano Toxiri, Sara Anastasi, Luigi Monica, and Darwin G Caldwelll Jesús Ortiz. 2019. Assessment of an On-board Classifier for Activity Recognition on an Active Back-Support Exoskeleton. In 2019 IEEE 16th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics (ICORR). IEEE, 559–564.

Digital Library

[15]

Linda Shore, Valerie Power, Bernard Hartigan, Samuel Schülein, Eveline Graf, Adam de Eyto, and Leonard O’Sullivan. 2020. Exoscore: A design tool to evaluate factors associated with technology acceptance of soft lower limb exosuits by older adults. Human Factors 62, 3 (2020), 391–410.

[16]

Matteo Sposito, Darwin G Caldwell, Elena De Momi, and Jesús Ortiz. 2020 (not published yet). Subjective assessment of Occupational Exoskeletons: feasibility study for a Custom Survey for Braces. In International Symposium on Wearable Robotics. Springer.

[17]

Matteo Sposito, Christian Di Natali, Stefano Toxiri, Darwin G Caldwell, Elena De Momi, and Jesús Ortiz. 2020. Exoskeleton kinematic design robustness: An assessment method to account for human variability. Wearable Technologies 1(2020).

[18]

Leia Stirling, Damian Kelty-Stephen, Richard Fineman, Monica LH Jones, Byoung-Keon Daniel Park, Matthew P Reed, Joseph Parham, and Hyeg Joo Choi. 2020. Static, dynamic, and cognitive fit of exosystems for the human operator. Human Factors 62, 3 (2020), 424–440.

[19]

Jean Theurel and Kevin Desbrosses. 2019. Occupational exoskeletons: Overview of their benefits and limitations in preventing work-related musculoskeletal disorders. IISE Transactions on Occupational Ergonomics and Human Factors 7, 3-4(2019), 264–280.

[20]

Stefano Toxiri, Axel S Koopman, Maria Lazzaroni, Jesús Ortiz, Valerie Power, Michiel P de Looze, Leonard O’Sullivan, and Darwin G Caldwell. 2018. Rationale, implementation and evaluation of assistive strategies for an active back-support exoskeleton. Frontiers in Robotics and AI 5 (2018), 53.

[21]

Stefano Toxiri, Matthias B Näf, Maria Lazzaroni, Jorge Fernández, Matteo Sposito, Tommaso Poliero, Luigi Monica, Sara Anastasi, Darwin G Caldwell, and Jesús Ortiz. 2019. Back-support exoskeletons for occupational use: an overview of technological advances and trends. IISE Transactions on Occupational Ergonomics and Human Factors 7, 3-4(2019), 237–249.

[22]

Thomas R Waters, Vern Putz-Anderson, Arun Garg, and Lawrence J Fine. 1993. Revised NIOSH equation for the design and evaluation of manual lifting tasks. Ergonomics 36, 7 (1993), 749–776.

[23]

Andrea Maria Zanchettin, Elizabeth Croft, Hao Ding, and Miao Li. 2018. Collaborative robots in the workplace [from the guest editors]. IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine 25, 2 (2018), 16–17.

Cited By

Franco OPark DDi Natali CCaldwell DOrtiz J(2024)Integration and Task Assessment of the User Command Interface to the Occupational Exoskeleton Shoulder-sideWINDER2024 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SII)10.1109/SII58957.2024.10417173(1176-1182)Online publication date: 8-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/SII58957.2024.10417173
F. OParameswari RDi Natali CCaldwell DOrtiz J(2024)Assessment and Benchmarking of XoNLI: a Natural Language Processing Interface for Industrial Exoskeletons2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)10.1109/ICRA57147.2024.10610451(3333-3340)Online publication date: 13-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA57147.2024.10610451
Franco OCrespo JDi Natali COrtiz JCaldwell D(2023)Integration of the User Command Interface to the Industrial Exoskeleton XoTrunk2023 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SII)10.1109/SII55687.2023.10039238(1-7)Online publication date: 17-Jan-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/SII55687.2023.10039238
Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Physical Comfort of Occupational Exoskeletons: Influence of Static Fit on Subjective Scores
PETRA '21: Proceedings of the 14th PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments Conference

Exoskeletons come in a variety of shapes and offer different mechanism to adapt to anthropometrics of different users. However, is not always clear how to relate those regulation mechanisms and anthropometric measurement in order to obtain a proper ...
Joint Kinetics and Lumbar Curvatures during Symmetric Lifting: Squat and Stoop
BMEI '08: Proceedings of the 2008 International Conference on BioMedical Engineering and Informatics - Volume 02

In this study, joint moments, joint powers, and lumbar lordosis were investigated for two different symmetrical lifting techniques using the three-dimensional motion analysis: squat and stoop. Twentynine male volunteers lifted boxes weighing 5, 10 and ...
Framework for the adoption, evaluation and impact of occupational Exoskeletons at different technology readiness levels: A systematic review
Abstract
Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorders (WMSDs) are the most common occupational diseases caused by the prolonged performance of strenuous work, such as manual handling of loads or long-term maintenance of incongruous postures. Different safety ...

Comments

Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

PETRA '21: Proceedings of the 14th PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments Conference

June 2021

593 pages

ISBN:9781450387927

DOI:10.1145/3453892

Conference Chair:
Fillia Makedon

Copyright © 2021 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial International 4.0 License.

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 29 June 2021

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed limited

Funding Sources

INAIL
Horizon 2020

Conference

PETRA '21

PETRA '21: The 14th PErvasive Technologies Related to Assistive Environments Conference

June 29 - July 2, 2021

Corfu, Greece

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

5
Total Citations
View Citations
582
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)137
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)19

Reflects downloads up to 02 Mar 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Franco OPark DDi Natali CCaldwell DOrtiz J(2024)Integration and Task Assessment of the User Command Interface to the Occupational Exoskeleton Shoulder-sideWINDER2024 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SII)10.1109/SII58957.2024.10417173(1176-1182)Online publication date: 8-Jan-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/SII58957.2024.10417173
F. OParameswari RDi Natali CCaldwell DOrtiz J(2024)Assessment and Benchmarking of XoNLI: a Natural Language Processing Interface for Industrial Exoskeletons2024 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)10.1109/ICRA57147.2024.10610451(3333-3340)Online publication date: 13-May-2024
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA57147.2024.10610451
Franco OCrespo JDi Natali COrtiz JCaldwell D(2023)Integration of the User Command Interface to the Industrial Exoskeleton XoTrunk2023 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on System Integration (SII)10.1109/SII55687.2023.10039238(1-7)Online publication date: 17-Jan-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/SII55687.2023.10039238
Moreno Franco OPark DDi Natali CCaldwell DOrtiz J(2023)Evaluation of Visual and Audio Notifications in the User Command Interface Integrated with the Industrial Exoskeleton Shoulder-sideWINDER2023 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO)10.1109/ROBIO58561.2023.10354678(1-7)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/ROBIO58561.2023.10354678
F. ODi Natali CMonica LDraicchio FCaldwell DOrtiz J(2023)Assessment of the Monitor System Interface: A Setup System Tool for Industrial Exoskeletons2023 9th International HCI and UX Conference in Indonesia (CHIuXiD)10.1109/CHIuXiD59550.2023.10452744(47-52)Online publication date: 18-Nov-2023
https://doi.org/10.1109/CHIuXiD59550.2023.10452744
Zanina VDlamini GPalyonov V(2023)Deep Learning Based Approach for Human Intention Estimation in Lower-Back ExoskeletonAdvances in Information and Communication10.1007/978-3-031-28073-3_12(164-182)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-28073-3_12

View Options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

Figures

Tables

Media

View Table of Conten