An Investigation of Exoskeleton Robotic Systems in Assisting Construction Tasks*

Whilst industrial robots have been widely used in many industrial sectors, they are predominantly used in a structured factory environment. In recent years, off-site robotics have been investigated extensively and there are some promising candidates emerging. One such category of robots is exoskeleton robots and this paper provides an in-depth assessment of their suitability in assisting human operators in undertaking manual operations typically found in the construction industry. This work aims to objectively assess the advantages and disadvantages of these two suits and provide recommendations for further improvements of similar system designs. The paper focuses on the passive exoskeleton robotic suits which are commercially available. Three types of activities are designed and a mechatronic methodology has been designed and implemented to capture visual data in order to assess these systems in comparison with normal human operations. The study suggests that these passive suits do reduce the effort required by human operators to undertake the same construction tasks as evidenced by the results from one focused study, though a number of improvements could be made to improve their performance for wider adoption.

极低视力视觉功能观察评估量表汉化及修订

目的：汉化并修订极低视力视觉功能观察评估量表（FLORA）。方法：分两步对FLORA进行汉化。第一步将FLORA翻译成中文，再回译成英文，通过对比原文和译文的一致性，修订和讨论译文的合理性，形成FLORA—C1；第二步组织低视力康复领域专家根据中国国情，对FLORA—C1进行多次讨论修订，形成FLORA．C2。结果：专家对低视力康复领域熟悉，权威系数为0．86，并熟悉人工视网膜领域的相关研究进展。经过翻译．修订后，形成的FLORA．C2由患者基本信息、填表说明、评估量表主体3个模块构成。评估量表主体又分为患者的自我评估、康复医师的观察评估及汇总报告3部分。自我评估部分由12个开放式问题组成；观察评估部分包括定向、行走、日常生活、人际交往4方面的能力，共43个评估条目；汇总报告为康复专家针对前两部分的结果进行总结。结论：FLORA—C2可用于评估人工视网膜系统在不同状态下对中国患者视觉功能及生活质量的影响，并为其他极低视力治疗的方法提供评估参考。