Assessment of Physical Exposure to Musculoskeletal Risks in Collaborative Robotics Using Dynamic Simulation
Many industrial tasks cannot be executed by a robot alone. A way to help workers in order to decrease the risk of musculoskeletal disorders is to assist them with a collaborative robot. Yet assessing its usefulness to the worker remains costly because it
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and Yvan Measson * and Vincent Padois Bidaud †
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and Philippe
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CEA LIST, Fontenay-aux-Roses, France ISIR, University Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris, France
Abstract Many industrial tasks cannot be executed by a robot alone. A way to help workers in order to decrease the risk of musculoskeletal disorders is to assist them with a collaborative robot. Yet assessing its usefulness to the worker remains costly because it usually requires a prototype. We propose a dynamic simulation framework to model the performing of a task jointly by a virtual manikin and a robot. It allows to measure physical quantities in order to perform an ergonomic assessment of the robot. Experiments are carried out on two different robots. The results show that the proposed simulation framework is helpful for designing collaborative robots. Further work includes enhancing the simulation realism and validation on a real robot.
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Introduction
Though working conditions have improved in developed countries, workrelated musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) remain a major health problem. These disorders affect the body’s muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments and nerves. They result from strenuous biomechanical solicitations caused by physical work. According to several studies (Silverstein and Adams, 2005, and Jones et al., 2005), over 50% of workers in industry suffer from MSD. In France it represents about 80% of the occupational diseases in 2009 (Ha and Roquelaure, 2010). Indeed, despite the growing robotization in industry, many hard tasks cannot be fully automatized, because of their unpredictability or their technicality. A solution is to assist the worker with a collaborative robot (or intelligent assist device), rather than replacing him. A collaborative robot enables the joint manipulation of objects with the worker and thereby provides a variety of benefits such as strength amplification, inertia masking and guidance via virtual surfaces and paths (Colgate et al., 2003).
V. Padois, P. Bidaud, O. Khatib (Eds.), Romansy 19 – Robot Design, Dynamics and Control, CISM International Centre for Mechanical Sciences, DOI 10.1007/978-3-7091-1379-0_40, © CISM, Udine 2013
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The purpose of these collaborative robots is to decrease the risk of MSD by alleviating the worker’s physical load and improving his posture. One of the main issues in the design process of a collaborative robot is to take into account the human presence and capabilities. Yet performing an ergonomic assessment of such a robot is essential to check its usefulness to the worker. Many methods exist (Guangyan and Buckle, 1999), based on the observation of an actual worker, but they need a prototype of the robot. It is a significant limitation in terms of cost and time. An alternative is to perform the assessment within a digital world, using a virtual manikin to simulate the worker. Digital human models are already available to evaluate the design of workstations, such as JACK, RAMSIS, SAFEWORK or SAMMIE (Blanchonette, 2010, and Porter et al., 2004). But
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