Comparison of flexion and extension moments from passive low-back exoskeletons as a function of angular velocity

Pain or injury to the low back are prevalent among individuals engaged in physically demanding occupations or tasks involving repetitive manual material handling, resulting in significant personal and societal burdens. Exoskeletons have emerged as a promising technology to mitigate the risk of injuries by providing mechanical support and reducing the physical demand on the body. Exoskeleton providers provide minimal information related to the support capability of their product, as many do not publish these magnitudes. Further, it is currently unclear whether these device's behaviors change under varying work demands (e.g., movement velocity). This study aimed to assess the effects of exoskeleton activation levels and angular velocity on sagittal plane moment outputs from the SuitX-backX and Laevo-V2.5. For data collection, we installed exoskeletons on a dynamometer and loaded them in a full range of motion with five different loading rates (5, 10, 20, 30, 45, and 60 deg/sec). We used Statistical Parametric Mapping Two-Way ANOVAs to compare between activation level (high/low) and angular velocities. Results revealed significant differences between activation levels and angular velocities for both models. This study aimed to measure moment outputs from the SuitX-backX and Laevo-V2.5 to determine if differences existed between exoskeleton activation levels and angular velocity to inform task-specific exoskeleton selection for occupational applications.