Up-to-date techniques for examining safety and physiological efficiency of industrial exoskeletons

Occupational morbidity caused by physical overloads and certain organs and systems being overstrained ranks second among occupational pathologies depending on an influencing adverse occupational factor. Given that, it seems vital and promising to develop industrial exoskeletons as they are able to protect a worker’s musculoskeletal system from excessive physical loads. And absence of a relative regulatory and technologic base is a challenge here as it imposes substantial limitations on industrial exoskeletons implementation in productions both in Russia and in other countries. A significant role in creating regulatory and technological base belongs to a possibility to accomplish an objective medical and biological examination of industrial exoskeletons safety and physiological efficiency. Developed and properly tested procedures for examining physiological and ergonomic properties of industrial exoskeletons will make a substantial contribution into a system of complex ergonomic tests accomplished at stages when exoskeletons are developed, created, and put into trial operation. The present paper dwells on up-to-date medical and biological procedures for examining safety and physiological efficiency of industrial exoskeletons. There are examples on using a «movement seizure» procedure performed with inertial sensors, ergospirometry, electromyography, and myotonometry for estimating physiological and ergonomic properties of industrial exoskeletons at a modeled working place. Results obtained via this research involving all the above mentioned procedures confirmed that it was safe and quite efficient to apply industrial exoskeletons for workers who had to deal with physical labor when performing work tasks similar to those used in developed models. Applied procedures can substantially enhance approaches to examining a worker’s functional state and obtained results will make a significant contribution into development of a regulatory and technological base for promising individual protection means used to protect the musculoskeletal system within the existing System of occupational safety standards.