Development of muscle suit and application to factory laborers

Abstract

Because of the progress of technology, we have liberated from heavy tasks in a large sense. However, heavy tasks that are difficult to mechanically automate are still remained a lot in the field of agriculture, manufacture, construction, and so forth. These heavy tasks are big issue since they cause work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Therefore, we developed Muscle Suit in order to solve this problem. Muscle Suit, wearable robot, provides a muscular support by wearing it on the laborers. The use of McKibben artificial muscle allows Muscle Suit to be lightweight, small enough, and reliable for practical use. In this paper, we have developed Muscle Suit for factory laborers and also examined the effects of Muscle Suit on lifting and holding tasks.