Table of Contents

Design and Fabrication of Lower Body Exoskeleton

Abstract:

Millions of people that work in factories, assembly line, public places and distribution centers around the world suffer from muscle related disorders. Due to constantly bending there back and knee muscle related problem. Considering the aspect, the objective of this work is to develop a new mechanism which assist the human locomotion, to learn in details about how the lower body exoskeleton works and understand the concept involved. The solution to problem is to have a portable device which has an ergonomic design. It is a mechanical ergonomics device that is design around the shape and function of the human body. The proposed device serves as an effective device to any kind of person to work them for long time without fatigue. This device will provide comfort and safety to user while working than any other method.

INTRODUCTION

A chair is piece of furniture with raised surface supported by legs commonly used to sit a single person. Aim of the chair is to sit anywhere and anytime every comfortably and safely without any hesitation.

Afterwards the chair was used where human want to sit. This led to use of chair in industrialization. But unfortunately due to various kinds of projects and environmental conditions, normal designed chair was unsuccessful model to use at work or site. To overcome the problems like comfort, safety, work space, work volume, fatigue, reliability and some hindrances an invention is done. We thought about design of a model which will overcome these kind of problems as well as drawbacks of existing models.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Conventional chair is not suitable to use 5 to 6 hours continuously for user, so user get tired and feel uncomfortable. At the same time muscle related problem to knee, back are increased. So, keeping in view decreasing the time required for work to be done, quality of work, productivity, efficiency of worker, it is important to develop a lower body exoskeleton to achieve desired objective.

Objectives Of Project

Based on limitation for conventional chair models, following objectives have been decided to carry present work given below. To offer an effective mechanism for sitting.
1) To safeguard the operator from health problems.
2) To provide efficient sitting technique, this will require least efforts.
3) To develop an affordable sitting mechanism for all kind of users.
4) To understand the user need and so design a human centred product.
5) To reduce fatigue in human body.
6) No external drive will be required to drive the mechanism
7) To make a sitting mechanism in minimum cost.
8) To develop simple and less space occupying device for industrial applications.
9) To increase the overall productivity.

Design and Fabrication of Lower Body Exoskeleton

Design Consideration

In order to design lower body exoskeleton the human ergonomics are taken in consideration by which components and frames were designed by following method.

1) Design of frame
2) Procedure
a) Firstly, measure the weight of the model.
b) Taking under consideration, weight of human body to be seated.
c) According to human ergonomics, taken the length of the seating member.
d) Further the problem is solved using formulae of the reaction forces method.
e) Calculate each force on each member which will affect the frame design.
f) After getting the force, find the stress which is to be act on the cross-section of frame.
g) Compare the calculated stress with the permissible stress.
h) Again, for bending stress calculation, first calculate the bending moment and then section modulus for the cross-section.
i) Compare the calculated bending stress with the permissible material stress.

BENEFITS AND LIMITATIONS OF LBE

A. Benefits of lbe
1) It is automatic.
2) It is powerless.
3) It provides maximum comfortable working environment.
4) It is light in weight.
5) It is compact in size hence portable.
6) It can be adjust in seconds.
7) It is very reliable.
8) It increases productivity as well as quality.

Limitations of LBE

1) It is not adjustable to different size of people.
2) It is not used for handicapped people.
3) After spending time on it, backache may occur because absence of the back support.

CONCLUSION

In this work, design and fabrication of lower body exoskeleton has been done. The main goal of work was to give the comfort as well as safety to workers, who work on production line for lot of hours. And the cost required for lower body exoskeleton found be less. Achieving lot of advantages over the present sitting method made this model very successful and useful to the world.