Design of a Wearable Lower Body Exoskeleton Mechanism for Shipbuilding Industry

Abstract

This paper presents a concept design of a wearable lower-body exoskeleton mechanism to reduce physical fatigue in the lower body of the personnel in shipbuilding while performing lower body fatigue orientated task such as welding, sandblasting, grinding and painting etc. The objective of this proposed design is to reduce physical fatigue while carrying the significant amount of load without much difficulty The concept design, kinematic and dynamic analyses are presented in this work. The equations of motion are obtained using Lagrangian energy method and based on the results obtained from kinematic and dynamic analysis, design variables are optimized to obtain an energy efficient and compact exoskeleton system. A suitable control system will be developed to achieve the required gait patterns and subsequently, a working prototype will be fabricated and tested.