Effects of a Powered Hip Exoskeleton on Whole Body during Lifting

Abstract

In this paper, the effects of the powered hip exoskeleton on whole body during lifting was investigated through the musculoskeletal model simulation. The simulation was performed by Anybody Modeling System (AMS) which analyzes the kinetics based on inverse dynamics using musculoskeletal model. The joint information of the lifting was obtained through video analysis and applied to the simulation. The simulation was conducted for three cases with no load, with a 10kg load, and with 10kg load and exoskeleton assistance. For each case, muscle forces of erector spinae sacrum, biceps femoris, gastrocnemius medialis were compared. As a result, the exoskeleton assist had no effect on erector spinae, but biceps femoris received assistance and gastrocnemius medialis was rather disturbed