Abstract—Agricultural tasks result in significant strain on the arms, thereby necessitating posture support. One such task is measuring the photosynthetic capacity of individual leaves. This task requires the operator to hold a measuring device for long periods, which is physically demanding. This study aims to develop an assist suit to reduce the physical load involved in photosynthesis measurement work. We used work posture evaluation methods to quantify the workload of this task and identified the parts of the body at high-risk of injury. Then, we designed an assist suit based on the required specifications and verified its effectiveness.
Index Terms—Agricultural work, leaf photosynthesis measurement, upper-limb assist suit, work posture evaluation, surface EMG.
T. Araie, T. Ikeda, and A. Kakimoto are with the Polytechnic University of Japan, 2-32-1, Ogawa-nishimachi, Kodaira-shi, Tokyo, Japan (e-mail: araie@uitec.ac.jp; ikeda@uitec.ac.jp; kakimoto@uitec.ac.jp).
S. Adachi is with the College of Agriculture, Ibaraki University, 3-21-1, Chuo, Inashikigun, Amimachi, Ibaraki, Japan (e-mail: shunsuke.adachi.0210@vc.ibaraki.ac.jp).
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Cite: Toshitake Araie, Ikeda Tomozumi, Akira Kakimoto, and Shunsuke Adachi, "Development of Upper-Limb Assist Suit for Reduction Physical Load in Leaf Photosynthesis Measurement," International Journal of Modeling and Optimization vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 185-190, 2020.
