Development of an Endoskeleton-type Lumbar Assistive Suit

In the manufacturing and transportation industries, back pain due to lifting activities has been a major problem. As a countermeasure, lumbar support suits have been developed. Among lumbar support suits, exoskeleton-type suits provide strong assistive force though they are heavy and difficult to move around. On the other hand, endoskeleton-type products are light and easy to move around because they are made of soft materials. However, the assistive force of endoskeleton-type products is considerably weaker than exoskeleton-type products. Therefore, in this study, we developed a product with simple structure which is achieved both ease of movement and effective assistive force.