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

各种各样的可穿戴机器人正在成为建筑领域人类操作挑战的解决方案。这些解决方案的目的是通过提供提升支撑、重量分散和姿势矫正来减少工人中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身体需求方面具有潜力，但目前的知识体系并没有充分了解将这些机器人纳入建筑工地的风险和挑战。鉴于大量的背部相关的伤害，在建筑行业，这项研究有助于支持设计和广泛使用的动力背部支持机器人在建筑行业。通过了解这些可穿戴机器人在建筑工地的潜在物理、心理和社会技术风险，该项目旨在克服建筑行业可扩展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设计适应性更强、更容易接近、更容易接受和更舒适的可穿戴机器人提供经验证据，以适应更广泛的体型和尺寸，以考虑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步，包括沉浸式技术，生理传感，可穿戴机器人，和组织心理学，以确定建筑行业外骨骼的潜在物理，心理和社会技术风险。该项目的技术目标分为三个方面。第一个重点将利用社会技术的角度来确定在建筑行业采用外骨骼的障碍和促进因素。第二个推力将产生一个沉浸式和交互式的虚拟现实测试平台，用于使用这些外骨骼执行的不同施工任务的可行模拟。特别是，这一重点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，对相关的身体和心理风险进行安全可行的评估。第三个重点是设计一个新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。具体而言，这一重点将整合人工智能和客观评估，以在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，信任和工人在施工任务中的警惕性之间开发新的解释管道。这三个研究目标将由一个全面的评估计划进行补充，该计划包括三个中期评估，以确保项目的可靠性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。

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.