Evaluation of Two Upper-Limb Exoskeletons for Ceiling Welding in the Naval Industry

Shipbuilding entails demanding operator tasks in several scenarios, like workshops, blocks or even ships under construction. This work focuses on ceiling welding, a usual task in the two latter scenarios, for which two commercial upper-limb exoskeletons were evaluated. Tests were conducted with two expert operators wearing the exoskeletons in a motion analysis lab equipped with an optical motion capture system, force plates and electromyographic sensors. Heart rate was also measured, videos were recorded and a questionnaire was filled by each operator. Muscular activity, kinematics, driving torques, metabolic cost, donning/doffing and execution times, were compared for both operators without and with the two exoskeletons in three assistance levels. It is concluded that improvement is achieved with both exos in most indicators although the total time to perform the task is not always reduced.