Repetitive overhead tasks during factory work can cause shoulder injuries resulting in impaired health and productivity loss. Soft wearable upper extremity robots have the potential to be effective injury prevention tools with minimal restrictions using soft materials and active controls. We present the design and evaluation of a portable inflatable shoulder wearable robot for assisting industrial workers during shoulder-elevated tasks. The robot is worn like a shirt with integrated textile pneumatic actuators, inertial measurement units, and a portable actuation unit. It can provide up to 6.6 newton-meters of torque to support the shoulder and cycle assistance on and off at six times per minute. From human participant evaluations during simulated industrial tasks, the robot reduced agonist muscle activities (anterior, middle, and posterior deltoids and biceps brachii) by up to 40% with slight changes in joint angles of less than 7% range of motion while not increasing antagonistic muscle activity (latissimus dorsi) in current sample size. Comparison of controller parameters further highlighted that higher assistance magnitude and earlier assistance timing resulted in statistically significant muscle activity reductions. During a task circuit with dynamic transitions among the tasks, the kinematics-based controller of the robot showed robustness to misinflations (96% true negative rate and 91% true positive rate), indicating minimal disturbances to the user when assistance was not required. A preliminary evaluation of a pressure modulation profile also highlighted a trade-off between user perception and hardware demands. Finally, five automotive factory workers used the robot in a pilot manufacturing area and provided feedback.

中文翻译：

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一种便携式充气软穿戴机器人，可在工业工作中辅助肩部


工厂工作期间重复性的头顶任务可能会导致肩部受伤，从而导致健康受损和生产力下降。软可穿戴上肢机器人有潜力成为有效的伤害预防工具，使用软材料和主动控制装置的限制最小。我们提出了一种便携式充气肩部可穿戴机器人的设计和评估，用于协助产业工人完成肩部抬高的任务。该机器人像衬衫一样穿着，配有集成纺织气动执行器、惯性测量单元和便携式执行单元。它可以提供高达 6.6 牛顿米的扭矩来支撑肩部，并以每分钟 6 次的速度开启和关闭自行车辅助装置。根据模拟工业任务期间人类参与者的评估，机器人将主动肌活动（三角肌前束、中束和后束以及肱二头肌）减少了高达 40%，关​​节角度的轻微变化小于 7% 的运动范围，同时不增加对抗性当前样本大小的肌肉活动（背阔肌）。控制器参数的比较进一步强调，较高的辅助幅度和较早的辅助时机导致统计上显着的肌肉活动减少。在任务之间进行动态转换的任务循环期间，机器人的基于运动学的控制器表现出对错误膨胀的鲁棒性（96％的真阴性率和91％的真阳性率），这表明在不需要帮助时对用户的干扰最小。对压力调制曲线的初步评估还强调了用户感知和硬件需求之间的权衡。最后，五名汽车工厂工人在试点制造区域使用了机器人并提供了反馈。