Standards for the Safety of Exoskeletons Used by Industrial Workers Performing Manual Handling Activities: A Contribution from the Robo-Mate Project to their Future Development

O’Sullivan, Leonard; Nugent, Rachel; Vorm, J. van der

doi:10.1016/j.promfg.2015.07.306

Cited by 26 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…A number of studies have promoted the development of standards that specifically target the industrial exoskeleton. One example is the Robo‐Mate industrial exoskeleton project aimed sponsored by the European Commission which was aimed at development of an industrial robot that can reduce WMSDs from MMH tasks . These types of studies have helped the standards developing organizations like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and ASTM International actively advance safety standards for exoskeletons …”

Section: Standardsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Industrial exoskeletons: Need for intervention effectiveness research

Howard

Murashov

Lowe

et al. 2019

American J Industrial Med

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Exoskeleton devices are being introduced across several industry sectors to augment, amplify, or reinforce the performance of a worker's existing body components-primarily the lower back and the upper extremity. Industrial exoskeletons may play a role in reducing work-related musculoskeletal disorders arising from lifting and handling heavy materials or from supporting heavy tools in overhead work. However, wearing an exoskeleton may pose a number of risks that are currently not well-studied. There are only a few studies about the safety and health implications of wearable exoskeletons and most of those studies involve only a small number of participants. Before the widespread implementation of industrial exoskeletons occurs, there is need for prospective interventional studies to evaluate the safety and health effectiveness of exoskeletons across various industry sectors. Developing a research strategy to fill current safety and health knowledge gaps, understanding the benefits, risks, and barriers to adoption of industrial exoskeletons, determining whether exoskeleton can be considered a type of personal protective equipment, and advancing consensus standards that address exoskeleton safety, should be major interests of both the occupational safety and health research and practice communities. K E Y W O R D S exoskeleton, human augmentation, intervention effectiveness, PPE

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Section: Standardsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Industrial exoskeletons: Need for intervention effectiveness research

Howard

Murashov

Lowe

et al. 2019

American J Industrial Med

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show abstract

“…Generally, many studies [ 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 ] investigated the biomechanical aspects, performing measurements of kinematics and electromyography. The study selection process revealed nine articles that, besides the biomechanical analysis, also carried out a metabolic investigation, adding, in this way, some important information about the energy involved in the use of UBEs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of Upper-Body Exoskeletons on Human Metabolic Cost and Thermal Response during Work Tasks—A Systematic Review

Ferraro

Falcone

Ranavolo

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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Background: New wearable assistive devices (exoskeletons) have been developed for assisting people during work activity or rehabilitation. Although exoskeletons have been introduced into different occupational fields in an attempt to reduce the risk of work-related musculoskeletal disorders, the effectiveness of their use in workplaces still needs to be investigated. This systematic review focused on the effects of upper-body exoskeletons (UBEs) on human metabolic cost and thermophysiological response during upper-body work tasks. Methods: articles published until 22 September 2020 were selected from Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed for eligibility and the potential risk of bias was assessed. Results: Nine articles resulted in being eligible for the metabolic aspects, and none for the thermal analysis. All the studies were based on comparisons between conditions with and without exoskeletons and considered a total of 94 participants (mainly males) performing tasks involving the trunk or overhead work, 7 back-support exoskeletons, and 1 upper-limb support exoskeleton. Eight studies found a significant reduction in the mean values of the metabolic or cardiorespiratory parameters considered and one found no differences. Conclusions: The reduction found represents a preliminary finding that needs to be confirmed in a wider range of conditions, especially in workplaces, where work tasks show different characteristics and durations compared to those simulated in the laboratory. Future developments should investigate the dependence of metabolic cost on specific UBE design approaches during tasks involving the trunk and the possible statistical correlation between the metabolic cost and the surface ElectroMyoGraphy (sEMG) parameters. Finally, it could be interesting to investigate the effect of exoskeletons on the human thermophysiological response.

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“…Furthermore, we chose to focus this survey on interaction with robots acting as independent entities, and so we do not consider the regime of interaction with wearable robots, such as exoskeletons or orthotics. (We direct the reader interested in the latter topic to recent works in both industrial and medical applications (Kolakowsky-Hayner et al, 2013;O'Sullivan et al, 2015;Zeilig et al, 2012).) This survey also does not focus on the psychological safety aspects of interacting with social robots and the potential impact such robots can have when emulating human personality traits or social behaviors.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Survey of Methods for Safe Human-Robot Interaction

2017

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Ensuring human safety is one of the most important considerations within the field of human-robot interaction (HRI). This does not simply involve preventing collisions between humans and robots operating within a shared space; we must consider all possible ways in which harm could come to a person, ranging from physical contact to adverse psychological effects resulting from unpleasant or dangerous interaction. In this work, we define what safe HRI entails and present a survey of potential methods of ensuring safety during HRI. We classify this collection of work into four major categories: safety through control, motion planning, prediction, and consideration of psychological factors. We discuss recent work in each major category, identify various sub-categories and discuss how these methods can be utilized to improve HRI safety. We then discuss gaps in the current literature and suggest future directions for additional work. By creating an organized categorization of the field, we hope to support future research and the development of new technologies for safe HRI, as well as facilitate the use of these techniques by researchers within the HRI community.

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Standards for the Safety of Exoskeletons Used by Industrial Workers Performing Manual Handling Activities: A Contribution from the Robo-Mate Project to their Future Development

Cited by 26 publications

References 9 publications

Industrial exoskeletons: Need for intervention effectiveness research

Industrial exoskeletons: Need for intervention effectiveness research

The Effects of Upper-Body Exoskeletons on Human Metabolic Cost and Thermal Response during Work Tasks—A Systematic Review

A Survey of Methods for Safe Human-Robot Interaction

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