In recent years, the number of industrial exoskeletons has significantly increased. As a large share of assembly tasks still requires the execution of manual work, exoskeletons may help provide support to users and, thus, reduce physical strain on the human musculoskeletal system. However, exoskeletons still lack empirical evidence on their potential relieving effects on the human body and are, thus, not widely deployed in industrial applications yet. To investigate on exoskeleton’s impacts and promote their future adoption in the industry, industrial settings are increasingly modeled as different test scenarios in a laboratory environment. Within this frame, this paper presents a study (n = 4) investigating on effects of both an exemplary passive and active exoskeleton at an overhead screwing task. The qualitative and quantitative analysis by means of a questionnaire study as well as electromyographic investigations reveals significant support potentials of exoskeletons on users in assembly tasks.

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