Collaborative Research: FW-HTF-R: Wearable Safety Sensing and Assistive Robot-Worker Collaboration for an Augmented Workforce in Construction

建筑工人在危险的工作环境中付出巨大的体力劳动，面临严重的安全和健康风险。因此，建筑业是美国风险最高的行业之一。建筑行业熟练工人的严重短缺，加大了改善工人安全和健康的需要。此外，目前的劳动力正在老龄化和退休；到2020年，大约39%的建筑工人年龄在45-64岁之间。年轻人的低兴趣和女性工人的低代表性（2020年仅为4%）加剧了现有的劳动力短缺。因此，迫切需要开发新技术，以保证工人的安全和不受伤，使该行业更具包容性和经济可持续性，并最终改变建筑工作不安全、技术含量低、男性占主导地位的负面形象。这个FW-HTF研究项目的目标是为增加劳动力开发可穿戴安全传感和辅助机器人工人协作，从而提高工人的保留率，吸引妇女和年轻工人从事建筑职业。研究人员还将开发一些综合研究和教育项目，以吸引代表性不足的群体的学生进入工程领域，并让本科生参与研究。尽管机器人技术的应用越来越广泛，但大多数研究都集中在它们如何支持建筑任务和产生经济效益上。很少有研究讨论如何部署可穿戴外骨骼来预防与工作有关的肌肉骨骼疾病，提高工人的安全和健康。需要采取新的干预措施来解决当前的安全和健康知识差距，确定采用新兴技术的社会和经济效益、风险和障碍，并促进建设一支包容、多样化和可持续的建筑劳动力队伍。可穿戴设备、机器学习以及虚拟、增强和混合现实技术为革新现有的建筑实践提供了巨大的希望。这种潜力促使项目主管部门开发一种综合的、多学科的方法，将这些新兴技术带给工人个人、组织和建筑行业，以加强工人的安全和健康，提高生产率，解决与性别和年龄有关的劳动力短缺问题，并扩大就业机会。在这个研究项目中，研究小组计划为熟练的建筑工人开发可穿戴的职业安全传感和辅助机器人协作技术。具体而言，该项目将强调：(1)支持机器学习的实时工人活动识别和姿态估计；(2)以用户为中心的软外骨骼设计；(3)混合现实增强型工作技能转移和基于工作场所的学习；(3)增强劳动力的可穿戴安全传感和辅助机器人协作；(4)拟议技术的社会经济影响分析；(5)试点研究、产业部署和劳动力培训。学术合作和多方利益相关者伙伴关系将提供必要的智力和人才基础设施，通过将建筑最佳实践与新兴技术相结合，解决多学科、多方面的挑战。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Construction workers exert intense physical effort and experience serious safety and health risks in hazardous working environments. Thus, the construction industry is one of the highest-risk sectors in the US. A significant shortage of skilled workers in the construction industry amplifies the need to improve workers’ safety and health. Furthermore, the current workforce is aging and retiring; approximately 39% of construction workers were between 45-64 years old in 2020. Low interest among young adults and very low representation of women workers (only 4% in 2020) is exacerbating the existing labor shortage. As a result, there is an urgent need to develop new technology that keeps workers safe and injury-free, makes the industry more inclusive and economically sustainable, and eventually changes negative images that construction jobs are unsafe, low tech, and too male-dominated. The objective of this FW-HTF research project is to develop wearable safety sensing and assistive robot-worker collaboration for an augmented workforce, thereby improving worker retention and attracting women and young workers to construction careers. The researchers will also develop a number of integrated research and education programs to attract students from underrepresented groups into engineering and involve undergraduate students in research.Although robotics technologies are increasingly used, most research focuses on how they support construction tasks and yield economic benefits. Few studies discuss how to deploy wearable exoskeletons to prevent work-related musculoskeletal disorders and improve workers’ safety and health. New interventions are needed to address current safety and health knowledge gaps, identify social and economic benefits, risks, and barriers to the adoption of emerging technologies, and contribute to the development of an inclusive, diverse, and sustainable workforce in construction. Wearable devices, machine learning, and virtual-, augmented- and mixed-reality technologies offer great promise for revolutionizing existing practices in construction. This potential motivates the PIs to develop an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to bring these emerging technologies to individual workers, organizations, and the construction industry to enhance worker safety and health, improve productivity, address gender- and age-related labor shortages and expand employment opportunities. In this research project, the team of researchers plans to develop wearable occupational safety sensing and assistive robotic collaboration technology for skilled construction workers. Specifically, this project will emphasize: (1) machine learning-enabled, real-time worker activity recognition and pose estimation; (2) user-centered design of soft exoskeletons; (3) mixed reality-enhanced work skill transferring and workplace-based learning; (3) wearable safety sensing and assistive robotic collaboration for an augmented workforce; (4) analyses of social-economic impacts of the proposed technology; and (5) pilot studies, industrial deployment and workforce training. Academic collaborations and multi-stakeholder partnerships will provide the intellectual and personnel infrastructure necessary to address the multi-disciplinary, multi-faceted challenges by integrating best practices in construction with emerging technologies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.