Evaluation of Visual and Audio Notifications in the User Command Interface Integrated with the Industrial Exoskeleton Shoulder-sideWINDER

Industrial exoskeletons are becoming increasingly important for preventing workers from developing musculoskeletal disorders when performing manual material handling. Because the exoskeletons are task dependent, there is versatility of use in the performance according to the type of movement that the user executes. The user command interface is a wearable device for industrial exoskeletons. It is an adaptable setup system between users and occupational wearable robots. The main purpose is to provide access to users in some domains of the exoskeleton configuration system. Areas such as secure user identification, parameter configuration, and signal visualization are well structured in the interface. Shoulder-sideWINDER is an active exoskeleton for shoulder support that was developed in collaboration between XoLab and the Italian Worker’s Compensation Authority. This exoskeleton requires a guided calibration process before the operation. In this paper, we present an evaluation of two novel features of the UCI: (a) tutorial and (b) audio notifications for calibration. These new features are integrated into the upper-limb industrial exoskeleton Shoulder-sideWINDER. Participants performed experiments to assess the interface comprehensibility and usability of the tutorial and sound notifications by wearing the Shoulder-sideWINDER exoskeleton and the user command interface. The results presented in this study show that the user command interface is a highly intuitive control device that guides the calibration sequence of the exoskeleton.