Abstract—This study develops a power assist suit (PAS) to assist laborers in agricultural work. This device is expected to reduce the strain produced by heavy agricultural work. During grape cultivation, pruning fruits in a posture, where workers have to keep their arms raised continuously, imposes a heavy burden on the workers including elderly. The objective of the PAS is to reduce the fatigue involved in the fruit pruning task by mounting a motor and spring-assisted mechanism on the suit. Quantifying the degree of fatigue reduction during agricultural work was necessary while developing the PAS. In this study, the surface electromyography (EMG), amount of energy expended, and exercise intensity were measured for motions similar to those involved in the shelf work in grape cultivation to verify the effects of reducing labor while wearing a PAS for agricultural work. The results demonstrated that the PAS developed for agricultural work could effectively reduce labor during static motions, such as maintaining postures.
Index Terms—Power assist suit, agricultural work, surface EMG, energy expenditure, heart rate reserve.
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).
U. Nishizawa and S. Toyama are with the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, 2-24-16, Nakacho, Koganei, Tokyo, Japan (e-mail: n-uichi@cc.tuat.ac.jp, toyama@cc.tuat.ac.jp).
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Cite: Toshitake Araie, Uichi Nishizawa, Tomozumi Ikeda, Akira Kakimoto, and Shigeki Toyama, "Evaluation of Labor Burden Reduction Achieved through Wearing an Agricultural Power Assist Suit," International Journal of Modeling and Optimization vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 202-206, 2017.
