Designing a wearable upper body exoskeleton mechanism with the aim of improving human movement performance

Subject Areas : Journal of New Applied and Computational Findings in Mechanical Systems

Farbod Farzad ¹ , Farzad Cheraghpour Samavati ²

1 - MSc student, Department of Mechanical Engineering Pardis Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
2 - Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pardis Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Received: 2023-04-16 Accepted : 2023-06-09 Published : 2023-05-22

Keywords: Robot design, Upper body exoskeleton, Exoskeleton, assistive robot, Wearable robot,

Abstract :

     Wearable mechanisms and robots are designed to improve human performance and body shape, and their design aims to help humans interact better with the environment. By using this human-connected mechanism, it is possible to help disabled people in more appropriate performance of movement activities such as walking, sitting and standing up, as well as in lifting objects that they are normally unable to lift. Improving a person's performance can include less fatigue in performing activities, protection against physical injuries resulting from heavy work, a person's capacity to carry more load, or a higher speed in performing movements. The upper body exoskeleton robotic mechanism (UBER) is designed as an easy-to-wear, flexible and adjustable mechanism to prevent common injuries, musculoskeletal, spinal and joint diseases. The purpose of developing this mobility aid robot for a skilled worker is to perform specialized tasks such as assembly operations in a production line in a relatively long period of time, with less fatigue and also to use the tools he needs easily. The stress and strain analysis performed with a load of 5 kilograms shows that the arm, in addition to bearing the weight of the user's hand, can also move a load of up to 3 kilograms. Considering the range of motion of the designed robot and the number of degrees of freedom, using this robot in the long term will maintain the skeletal health of the skilled worker, thus increasing production efficiency by reducing labor health costs.

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