Ding Shuo, Reyes Francisco Anaya, Li Tong, Yu Haoyong
Department of Biomedical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore.
Wearable Technol. 2023 Mar 2;4:e7. doi: 10.1017/wtc.2023.1. eCollection 2023.
Shoulder exoskeletons (SEs) can assist the shoulder joint of workers during overhead work and are usually passive for good portability. However, current passive SEs face the challenge that their torque generators are often attached to the human arm, which adds a significant amount of weight to the user's arms, resulting in additional energy consumption of the user. In this paper, we present a novel passive SE whose torque generator is attached to the user's back and assists the shoulder joint through Bowden cables. Our approach greatly reduces the weight on the user's arms and can accommodate complex shoulder joint movements with simple and lightweight mechanical structure based on Bowden cables. In addition, to match the nonlinear torque requirements of the shoulder joint, a unique spring-cam mechanism is proposed as the torque generator. To verify the effectiveness of the device, we conducted a usability test based on muscle activations of 10 healthy subjects. When assisting overhead work, the SE significantly reduced the mean and maximum electromyography signals of the shoulder-related muscles by up to 25%. The proposed SE contributes to further research on passive SE design to improve usability, especially in terms of reducing weight on human arms.
肩部外骨骼（SEs）可以在工人进行头顶作业时辅助肩关节，并且通常为了便于携带而采用被动式。然而，当前的被动式肩部外骨骼面临一个挑战，即其扭矩发生器通常连接在人体手臂上，这给使用者的手臂增加了相当大的重量，导致使用者额外的能量消耗。在本文中，我们提出了一种新型的被动式肩部外骨骼，其扭矩发生器连接在使用者的背部，并通过鲍登缆线辅助肩关节。我们的方法大大减轻了使用者手臂上的重量，并且基于鲍登缆线的简单轻巧的机械结构能够适应复杂的肩关节运动。此外，为了匹配肩关节的非线性扭矩要求，我们提出了一种独特的弹簧 - 凸轮机构作为扭矩发生器。为了验证该装置的有效性，我们基于10名健康受试者的肌肉激活情况进行了可用性测试。在辅助头顶作业时，该肩部外骨骼显著降低了肩部相关肌肉的平均和最大肌电图信号，降幅高达25%。所提出的肩部外骨骼有助于进一步开展被动式肩部外骨骼设计研究以提高可用性，特别是在减轻人体手臂重量方面。
