Collaborative Research: NRI: Understanding Underlying Risks and Sociotechnical Challenges of Powered Wearable Exoskeleton to Construction Workers

各种可穿戴机器人正在兴起，作为建筑领域人类操作挑战的解决方案。此类解决方案的目的是通过提供升降支撑、重量分散和姿势矫正来减少工人与工作相关的身体伤害。尽管这些可穿戴机器人在减少建筑工人的体力需求方面具有潜力，但目前的知识体系并没有充分了解将这些机器人引入建筑工地的风险和挑战。鉴于建筑行业存在大量背部相关伤害，这项研究有助于支持建筑行业动力背部支撑机器人的设计和广泛使用。通过了解这些可穿戴机器人在建筑工地潜在的身体、心理和社会技术风险，该项目旨在克服在建筑行业大规模采用这些可穿戴机器人的挑战，从而提高美国建筑行业 750 万工人的安全和生产力。此外，这项研究将为制造商提供经验证据，帮助他们设计出更具适应性、更容易使用、更容易接受和更舒适的可穿戴机器人，以适应更广泛的体型和尺寸，以考虑到建筑行业的不同人群。这项跨学科研究旨在整合各种关键创新的进展，包括沉浸式技术、生理传感、可穿戴机器人和组织心理学，以识别建筑领域外骨骼潜在的物理、心理和社会技术风险。该项目的技术目标分为三个主旨。第一个重点将利用社会技术视角来确定建筑行业采用外骨骼的障碍和促进因素。第二个推动力将生成一个身临其境的交互式虚拟现实测试平台，用于对使用这些外骨骼执行的不同施工任务进行可行的模拟。特别是，这一推动力将开发一个以用户为中心的模拟工作空间，以无缝地检查不同的交互，从而对相关的身体和心理风险进行安全可行的评估。第三个重点将设计一种新颖的以工人为中心的风险评估框架，用于评估建筑工人使用这些外骨骼的身体和心理风险。具体来说，这一推动力将整合人工智能和客观评估，在施工任务期间工人的生理和心理生理数据与局部肌肉疲劳、跌倒风险、关节过度伸展、认知工作量、信任和警惕性之间建立一个新的解释管道。这三个研究目标将由一个包含三个中间评估的综合评估计划来补充，以确保项目的可靠性。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

A wide range of wearable robots are emerging as solutions to human operation challenges in the construction sector. The aim for such solutions is to reduce work-related physical injuries among workers by providing lift support, weight dispersion, and posture correction. In spite of the potential of these wearable robots in reducing the physical demands of construction workers, the current body of knowledge does not provide an adequate understanding of the risks and challenges of incorporating these robots on construction sites. Given the large number of back-related injuries in the construction industry, this research contributes to supporting the design and widespread use of powered back-support robots in the construction industry. By understanding the potential physical, psychological, and socio-technical risks of these wearable robots at construction sites, this project aims to overcome the challenges of scalable adoption of these wearable robots in the construction industry, thereby improving the safety and productivity of 7.5 million workers in the U.S. construction sector. Furthermore, this research will provide empirical evidence for manufacturers to design more adaptable, accessible, acceptable, and comfortable wearable robots for a wider range of body shapes and sizes to take into account diverse populations of the construction sector.This interdisciplinary research seeks to integrate advances across a diverse spectrum of critical innovations, including immersive technologies, physiological sensing, wearable robots, and organizational psychology, to identify the underlying physical, psychological, and socio-technical risks of exoskeletons in the construction sector. The technical aims of this project are divided into three thrusts. The first thrust will utilize a socio-technical perspective to identify barriers and facilitators to the adoption of exoskeletons in the construction industry. The second thrust will generate an immersive and interactive virtual-reality testbed for the feasible simulation of different construction tasks executed using these exoskeletons. In particular, this thrust will develop a user-centered, simulated workspace to seamlessly examine different interactions for a safe and feasible evaluation of pertinent physical and psychological risks. The third thrust will design a novel worker-centered risk assessment framework for evaluating the physical and psychological risks of using these exoskeletons for construction workers. Specifically, this thrust will integrate artificial intelligence and objective evaluations to develop a new interpretive pipeline between physiological and psychophysiological data with local muscular fatigue, fall risk, joint hyperextension, cognitive workload, trust, and vigilance of workers during the construction tasks. These three research aims will be complemented by a comprehensive evaluation plan featuring three intermediate evaluations to ensure the reliability of the project.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.