Assessment of the Monitor System Interface: A Setup System Tool for Industrial Exoskeletons

Workers in industries are prone to injuries and musculoskeletal disorders when performing normal tasks. A potential solution to alleviate this situation is the use of back-support industrial exoskeletons in the workplace. These wearable devices consist of electrical actuators, sensors, and controllers that produce appropriate assistive forces when workers complete their activities. The technological integration of different active components in the exoskeleton creates a complex system with multiple strategies to achieve the force modulation produced by the system. In these scenarios, it is important to open some domains of the exoskeleton to the user to initialize the system, calibrate the exoskeleton, introduce user personal information (such as weight and height), and modify the controller parameters. The work presented in this study shows the assessment of the monitor system interface, which is a graphical user interface that allows the user to interact directly with the exoskeleton domains with easy adjustments. XoTrunk is an active industrial exoskeleton designed for carrying and lifting tasks. The controller architecture permits adequate force modulation according to the user action with an adjustable control strategy from the monitor system interface. Experiments were conducted with 12 participants in a standard lifting action wearing the exoskeleton. The results showed that the monitor system interface is a useful tool for human-robot interaction. The current version of the interface grants the user access to the exoskeleton domains previously mentioned.