Mechanical Design and Preliminary Performance Evaluation of a Passive Arm-support Exoskeleton

In this study, a passive arm-support exoskeleton was designed to provide assistive aid for manufacturing workers. The exoskeleton has two operating states which can be altered using an unique ratchet bar mechanism with two blocks fixed on the ratchet bar. When the upper arm is elevated to the highest poiont, the pawl module will touch the lower block to allow the pawl separated, so that the arm can move freely without any resistance. When the upper arm is depressed to the lowest point, the pawl module will touch the upper block to make the pawl re-engaged, so that the upper arm can be locked at any vertical position. For purpose to improve the ergonomical property, the structural parameters of the exoskeleton were determined by particle swarm optimization. The designed exoskeleton was simulated in the Adams model to investigate its actual performance. A preliminary experimental study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the designed exoskeleton on alleviating users’ physical loads in holding heavy tools; the muscular activities on the shoulder muscle groups involved in the weights bearing, elicited by the surface electromyography (EMG) over the shoulder, were significantly reduced from three healthy subjects who carried hand-held tools. The simulation and experiment results show that the designed exoskeleton could effectively relieve the shoulder burden by transferring the bearing load to the waist, where the motion of the arm was not obstructed.