| Affiliations: | Aggie Research Mentoring Program |
| Project Leader: | Tiash Rana Mukherjee
tiashrana@tamu.edu Mechanical Engineering |
| Faculty Mentor: | Prabhakar Pagilla, Ph.D |
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Meeting Times:
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TBA |
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Team Size:
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4 |
| Open Spots: | 1 |
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Special Opportunities:
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– Opportunities to present at domestic and international conferences
– Earning co-authorship given significant contributions – Learning new skills & gain experience for graduate school – Will convert to a paid position, based on contribution and work ethics (Continue into Fall 2024) |
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Team Needs:
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Skills: Programming, CAD Knowlegde: Willing to learn more about human movement/biomechanics |
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Description:
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Back injuries account for ~40% of the reported non-fatal work-related musculoskeletal disorders in material handling occupations. Tasks like repetitive bending, frequent lifting, and twisting contribute to the prevalence of these disorders, adversely impacting the well-being of workers. Exoskeletons are wearable robots introduced as a personal ergonomic intervention in industries to assist workers to reduce these risks. Unlike traditional human-robot collaborations where robots operate as separate entities, exoskeletons are intimately connected with their users. They are mainly categorized into passive and active exoskeletons. Passive exoskeletons rely on mechanisms that leverage human movements to generate assistive forces, while active exoskeletons depend on an external power source to assist wearers. Passive exoskeletons have shown greater adoption in industries owing to their size, user comfort, and cost effectiveness, however, recent evidence allude to greater biomechanical benefits with active exoskeletons for dynamic tasks. To realize this potential, factors such as adaptation to active exoskeletons and their utility across different task demands become critical for their adoption by wearers. Therefore, it is necessary to comprehensively evaluate use of active exoskeletons in different contexts to provide evidence-based guidelines for integrating this technology into real-world work environments. |