Cargando…

Towards a Functional Performance Validation Standard for Industrial Low-Back Exoskeletons: State of the Art Review

While the research interest for exoskeletons has been rising in the last decades, missing standards for their rigorous evaluation are potentially limiting their adoption in the industrial field. In this context, exoskeletons for worker support have the aim to reduce the physical effort required by h...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Pesenti, Mattia, Antonietti, Alberto, Gandolla, Marta, Pedrocchi, Alessandra
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7865790/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33530377
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s21030808
_version_ 1783647929604505600
author Pesenti, Mattia
Antonietti, Alberto
Gandolla, Marta
Pedrocchi, Alessandra
author_facet Pesenti, Mattia
Antonietti, Alberto
Gandolla, Marta
Pedrocchi, Alessandra
author_sort Pesenti, Mattia
collection PubMed
description While the research interest for exoskeletons has been rising in the last decades, missing standards for their rigorous evaluation are potentially limiting their adoption in the industrial field. In this context, exoskeletons for worker support have the aim to reduce the physical effort required by humans, with dramatic social and economic impact. Indeed, exoskeletons can reduce the occurrence and the entity of work-related musculoskeletal disorders that often cause absence from work, resulting in an eventual productivity loss. This very urgent and multifaceted issue is starting to be acknowledged by researchers. This article provides a systematic review of the state of the art for functional performance evaluation of low-back exoskeletons for industrial workers. We report the state-of-the-art evaluation criteria and metrics used for such a purpose, highlighting the lack of a standard for this practice. Very few studies carried out a rigorous evaluation of the assistance provided by the device. To address also this topic, the article ends with a proposed framework for the functional validation of low-back exoskeletons for the industry, with the aim to pave the way for the definition of rigorous industrial standards.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7865790
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher MDPI
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-78657902021-02-07 Towards a Functional Performance Validation Standard for Industrial Low-Back Exoskeletons: State of the Art Review Pesenti, Mattia Antonietti, Alberto Gandolla, Marta Pedrocchi, Alessandra Sensors (Basel) Review While the research interest for exoskeletons has been rising in the last decades, missing standards for their rigorous evaluation are potentially limiting their adoption in the industrial field. In this context, exoskeletons for worker support have the aim to reduce the physical effort required by humans, with dramatic social and economic impact. Indeed, exoskeletons can reduce the occurrence and the entity of work-related musculoskeletal disorders that often cause absence from work, resulting in an eventual productivity loss. This very urgent and multifaceted issue is starting to be acknowledged by researchers. This article provides a systematic review of the state of the art for functional performance evaluation of low-back exoskeletons for industrial workers. We report the state-of-the-art evaluation criteria and metrics used for such a purpose, highlighting the lack of a standard for this practice. Very few studies carried out a rigorous evaluation of the assistance provided by the device. To address also this topic, the article ends with a proposed framework for the functional validation of low-back exoskeletons for the industry, with the aim to pave the way for the definition of rigorous industrial standards. MDPI 2021-01-26 /pmc/articles/PMC7865790/ /pubmed/33530377 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s21030808 Text en © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Pesenti, Mattia
Antonietti, Alberto
Gandolla, Marta
Pedrocchi, Alessandra
Towards a Functional Performance Validation Standard for Industrial Low-Back Exoskeletons: State of the Art Review
title Towards a Functional Performance Validation Standard for Industrial Low-Back Exoskeletons: State of the Art Review
title_full Towards a Functional Performance Validation Standard for Industrial Low-Back Exoskeletons: State of the Art Review
title_fullStr Towards a Functional Performance Validation Standard for Industrial Low-Back Exoskeletons: State of the Art Review
title_full_unstemmed Towards a Functional Performance Validation Standard for Industrial Low-Back Exoskeletons: State of the Art Review
title_short Towards a Functional Performance Validation Standard for Industrial Low-Back Exoskeletons: State of the Art Review
title_sort towards a functional performance validation standard for industrial low-back exoskeletons: state of the art review
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7865790/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33530377
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s21030808
work_keys_str_mv AT pesentimattia towardsafunctionalperformancevalidationstandardforindustriallowbackexoskeletonsstateoftheartreview
AT antoniettialberto towardsafunctionalperformancevalidationstandardforindustriallowbackexoskeletonsstateoftheartreview
AT gandollamarta towardsafunctionalperformancevalidationstandardforindustriallowbackexoskeletonsstateoftheartreview
AT pedrocchialessandra towardsafunctionalperformancevalidationstandardforindustriallowbackexoskeletonsstateoftheartreview