Design of a fail-safe wearable robot with novel extendable arms for ergonomic accommodation during floor work

Aircraft manufacturing, construction, and agricultural production often involve workers maintaining uncomfortable postures, such as stooping and kneeling, for extended periods of time. We present a wearable robot, named MantisBot Alpha, that consists of two expandable robotic arms that brace a worker near the ground. It allows them to perform bi-manual tasks and assists them in standing up and kneeling down. The key component of this new design is a novel linkage mechanism that provides adjustment of both the worker's distance to the ground and the tilt of their torso. The mechanism link parameters are optimized such that a) its expansion rate is high enough, 1:2.43, to push off the human body from the ground and fully contract the scissor arm when not used, and b) it allows the worker to reach within a larger working space while c) it is light enough for wearability. The linkage mechanism avoids the singularity problem in standard scissor mechanisms. The mechanical design of the system ensures it is fail-safe. A prototype has been fabricated to demonstrate the feasibility of the system. Keywords: Human Augmentation, Supernumerary Robotic Limbs, Exoskeletons, Mechanism Design, Industrial Robotics

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Hahm, Katie S.(Katie Soyoung)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• H. Harry Asada.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/122144

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/122144