Innovative Design of an Upper Limb Passive Exoskeleton for Electrical Work: A Preliminary Exploration

High-voltage live work requires workers to hold tools, such as insulating hollow tubes, in a specific posture for an extended period in a complex overhead working environment. This can lead to irreversible strain injuries in the upper limbs, particularly on the shoulders of maintenance workers. Therefore, this paper proposes a new passive upper limb exoskeleton to alleviate the burden on maintenance workers’ upper limbs. First, this paper adopts a video method to measure the range of motion of the workers’ upper limb joint angles to define the degree of freedom of the exoskeleton; then, we innovatively use gas springs instead of the existing metal springs to provide passive support for the upper limbs. The support force of this exoskeleton can be adjusted more widely and has higher flexibility than the metal spring exoskeleton solution. Finally, we designed a validation experiment involving a skilled worker to assess the effectiveness of the exoskeleton in comparison to not wearing it. When the worker wore the exoskeleton, the root mean square value of surface electromyographic signals during each task stage of live work showed an average reduction of 14.05%. Additionally, the exoskeleton did not exert any discernible influence on working efficiency.