Abstract
Harnesses can be used in various applications, such as entertainment, rescue operations, and medical applications. Because users are supported on the harness for a long time, they should feel comfortable wearing the harnesses. However, existing commercial harnesses are uncomfortable to wear and cause continuous serious pain. Therefore, in this study, a new pant-type harness with a fabric air pocket to reduce the applied pressure on the body, especially in the groin, is proposed. Keeping this in mind, we have designed and developed the pant-type harness. In addition, we performed pressure and contact area measurement experiments using the harness developed, pressure sensor, and a human mannequin. Peak and mean pressures and contact areas near the groin and waist were measured in the experiments. From the results, when air is injected in the air pockets, the peak pressure and contact area near the waist increased, and the peak pressure near the groin decreased. This means that the pressure applied on the human mannequin near the groin reduces because of the increased contact area near the waist, which is achieved by multi-layered air pockets. In this study, we proposed the optimal design of a novel pant-type harness that can address the limitations of existing harnesses. The proposed harness can be used for a prolonged time in applications, such as virtual reality entertainment, rescue operations, and rehabilitation.
Highlights
A harness is a looped restraint or support for fall protection. It can be used in applications such as virtual reality entertainment and performance to guarantee user safety [1]
The results from the loaded posture had the biggest contact area through the whole posture, we focused on the loaded posture to observe the relationship between pressure and contact area
To validate the reduction in pain, we performed pressure measurement the peak pressures decreased to 160 kPa and 129 kPa without and with air-charged air pockets, experiments using the developed harness, pressure sensor, and human mannequin
Summary
A harness is a looped restraint or support for fall protection. It can be used in applications such as virtual reality entertainment and performance to guarantee user safety [1]. A conventional commercial harness consists of strap loops for the legs, a waist belt, and metal buckles. When users wear the harness, they feel activity restriction and severe pain due to the strap-type loops. Most harnesses are similar in shape, even if they are considered for different types, applications, and environments. When users wearing strap-type harnesses are lifted, they feel uncomfortable because of the pressure generated by gravity on the contact area (pelvis and thigh). Several studies have shown that existing harnesses are uncomfortable for users [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]
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