What a relief!
A physicist from Moscow State University found out how much labor simple exoskeletons save
Physicist from Russia and his colleague from France found out that even simple passive exoskeletons allow a person to save about a third of energy when carrying heavy loads and under other loads, which should significantly increase the strength and endurance of workers, according to an article published in the journal Multibody System Dynamics (Aoustin, Formalskii, Walking of biped with passive exoskeleton: evaluation of energy consumption).
"We have theoretically shown that a person in an exoskeleton spends less energy when carrying loads than a person without an exoskeleton. We hope that our publication will once again draw the attention of researchers and designers to the possibilities of passive exoskeletons and encourage them to devote more time to the development of such devices," said Alexander Formalsky from the Moscow State University Mechanics Research Institute.
Doctors, physicists and engineers have been developing designs for more than a century that simulate the work of various parts of the human body, or help replace or strengthen some of them. Such biomechanical devices, the so-called exoskeletons, are now considered as one of the possible ways to restore mobility to disabled people, increase the productivity of workers and the survival rate of fighters on the battlefield.
Almost immediately after the appearance of the first such devices in the middle of the 20th century, they were divided into two types – active exoskeletons, in which the main work is performed by a machine that consumes energy for this, and passive exoskeletons that help a person to use their own forces as efficiently as possible and not injure themselves during overloads.
Formalsky and his colleague Yannick Austin from the University of Nantes (France) studied the properties of passive exoskeletons that help a person carry heavy loads. Such devices are equipped only with mechanical brakes, which at certain times "lock" the knee joint of one or the other leg.
Such exoskeletons practically do not require maintenance and have a very modest mass compared to the "iron man suits", however, the lack of engines and other sources of "external force" makes them unattractive both for the public and for engineers who want to make a person several times stronger.
Austin and Formalsky tested whether passive exoskeletons were completely useless by creating a computer model of a person in a similar machine, which allowed them to calculate how much it affected how much energy he spent on walking and other physical activities.
As their calculations showed, a person of average height and weight, 175 centimeters and 75 kilograms, will spend less effort moving through space if he is wearing an exoskeleton weighing 14 kilograms or less. Moreover, he will be able to save about 28% of energy if he uses a passive exoskeleton when carrying boxes or bags weighing about 40 kilograms.
This, according to the Russian physicist and his French colleague, suggests that the potential of such devices is greatly underestimated today, and that their creation and distribution across industrial enterprises would significantly increase the efficiency of workers and reduce the level of injury.
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