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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Biomechanics
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2024.1418775
This article is part of the Research Topic Assessment and Monitoring of Human Movement View all 27 articles

Fatigue Assessment for Back-Support Exoskeletons During Repetitive Lifting Tasks

Provisionally accepted
Xiaohan Xiang Xiaohan Xiang *Masahiro Tanaka Masahiro Tanaka Satoru Umeno Satoru Umeno Yutaka Kikuchi Yutaka Kikuchi Yoshihiko Kobayashi Yoshihiko Kobayashi
  • National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), Tsukuba, Japan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Fatigue is a major cause of low back pain for workers in various fields, including industry and agriculture. It has a negative impact on workers' safety, decreases their productivity, and causes a reduction in their occupational career. An exoskeleton is expected to be a solution for reducing workers' fatigue. However, assessing the safety and effectiveness of exoskeletons, except for the direct measurement of electromyography (EMG) in the human body, is challenging in real-case scenarios. Recently, simulations have been widely used to estimate biomechanical variables. Thus, we aimed to develop a method that combines an exoskeleton model and human body simulation to evaluate the effects of exoskeletons on lumbar fatigue. The strength and tendency estimated using this method are similar to those obtained from EMG devices in symmetrical repetitive lifting tasks. In addition, this method can be used to predict and simulate fatigue after a recorded motion. Our findings will help guide manufacturers in designing their products.

    Keywords: low bak pain, safety assessment, exoskeleton, lumbar fatigue, Human simulation

    Received: 17 Apr 2024; Accepted: 09 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Xiang, Tanaka, Umeno, Kikuchi and Kobayashi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Xiaohan Xiang, National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), Tsukuba, Japan

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.