ChairX: A Robotic Exoskeleton Chair for Industrial Workers

This paper proposes a robotic exoskeleton chair, named ChairX, for providing sitting assistance for the industrial workers who need to carry out tasks at different crouched postures repetitively. It can act as a customizable chair to support bodyweight for relieving the lower extremity and provide freedom for ambulation when moving between workstations. In comparison to the predecessors, the ChairX is designed to assist the user for assuming crouched positions with forward- as well as backward-inclined leg angles. Moreover, it is flexible to provide sitting assistance at different heights to ensure ergonomics at work The ChairX includes a knee-centered locking mechanism on the lateral side and an active linkage mechanism on the posterior of the leg to support the weight of the user at various seated positions. A mathematical model was formulated to optimize the system parameters and a prototype was built to carry out the physical tests. The results revealed that ChairX can maintain stability and reduce the musculoskeletal strains effectively, thus has the potential to improve the quality of work.