NCT03134144

Chairless Chair Exoskeleton. Work-physiological-biomechanical Analysis of the Lower Extremities

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 46 (actual)
• Sponsor: University Hospital Tuebingen · Academic / Other
• Sex: Male
• Age: 18 Years – 40 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

Standing work is associated with increased risks of venous and musculoskeletal disorders; particularly low back pain is commonly reported in prolonged standing work. In manufacturing work, workstations often do not allow standing aids due to insufficient functional and spatial conditions. In 2014, the car manufacturer Audi introduced the lower leg exoskeleton developed by Noonee to their employees working in the factories. This exoskeleton, the 'Chairless Chair' has the advantage that standing work can be performed while technically sitting on this device. The exoskeleton offers the potential for reduced awkward body postures, but it is unclear which physiological and biomechanical loads are influenced and how. This proposal provides a study design evaluating the 'Chairless Chair' in a laboratory setting, by testing its effectiveness in terms of physiological and biomechanical parameters. It is suggested to compare different assembly tasks while wearing the exoskeleton, compared with not wearing the exoskeleton. The 'Chairless Chair' is developed in one size only, which is why we propose to include participants of different body height, which will enable us to investigate whether body height influences the effectiveness of wearing the device.

Detailed description

Each participant was exposed to all experimental conditions, which were the following: * Standing without the exoskeleton * Sitting with the exoskeleton For both experimental conditions, the working height was adjusted to the individual to become optimal. The working distance to the simulated assembly tasks was also adjusted to the individual to become optimal. Both the working height and distance were based on textual guidelines provided in DIN EN ISO 14738:2009-07. Each work cycle consisted of assembling and disassembling the following three tasks: * Screwing * Clip fitting * Cable mounting In addition, we investigated suboptimal working heights and distances. The results of these suboptimal conditions will not be reported in the results on this website, but in a separate publication.

Conditions

• Healthy

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	Exoskeleton "Chairless Chair"	One solution to reduce the exposure of employees to associated risks for developing work-related musculoskeletal disorders is to use exoskeletons. Using such a device in dynamic environments has the advantage over, e.g., robotics because it does not need any programming or teaching of robots. Moreover, exoskeletons are worn at the body and do not have to overcome spatial issues. In a recent review, 26 different exoskeletons have been described of which only two were designed to support the lower body during heavy work (de Looze et al. 2015). For lower intensive work tasks, like assembly tasks in the automobile industry, no study has focused on using exoskeletons to relieve employees while performing the work standing.

Timeline

• Start date: 2017-05-01
• Primary completion: 2017-10-15
• Completion: 2017-10-15
• First posted: 2017-04-28
• Last updated: 2020-06-16
• Results posted: 2020-06-16

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Germany