Structural design of a passive wearable exoskeleton to assist oil palm harvesting operation
Harvesting of oil palm fresh fruit bunches is still performed manually, involving extensive energy, awkward postures or repetitive motion, and often under strenuous conditions. Exoskeleton technologies are increasingly being explored for performance augmentation and ergonomics intervention in indust...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
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Malaysian Palm Oil Board
2022
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| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/103316/ |
| _version_ | 1848863987907690496 |
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| author | Mohamad, Muhammad Fuad Sowat, Sharence Nai Selamat, Hazlina Azaman, Aizreena Harith, Hazreen H. |
| author_facet | Mohamad, Muhammad Fuad Sowat, Sharence Nai Selamat, Hazlina Azaman, Aizreena Harith, Hazreen H. |
| author_sort | Mohamad, Muhammad Fuad |
| building | UPM Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Harvesting of oil palm fresh fruit bunches is still performed manually, involving extensive energy, awkward postures or repetitive motion, and often under strenuous conditions. Exoskeleton technologies are increasingly being explored for performance augmentation and ergonomics intervention in industrial settings. For challenging environments, like the oil palm plantation, the dynamic interactions between user, task and environment is non-trivial. Importantly, an exoskeleton should not impede a worker’s movement and task performance throughout the period of wear. Intrinsically, designing an exoskeleton for oil palm harvesting entails that the dynamic interactions between the harvester, the pole, and surrounding objects is considered early in the design process. We adopted the systems approach to designing an upper limb exoskeleton to assist oil palm harvesters. The proposed design is a slimline passive exoskeleton that provides an assistive force through compression springs in the upper arm region. Structural analysis and a preliminary prototype evaluation were performed for design verification. The weakest component was the back plate. Nevertheless, permanent deformation would only occur when an equivalent of 26 kg load is applied to the exoskeleton arm.Future work includes optimising the design and elucidating its long-term effects on the harvester’s efficiency and field productivity through biomechanical analysis and field tests. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-15T13:41:39Z |
| format | Article |
| id | upm-103316 |
| institution | Universiti Putra Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-15T13:41:39Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Malaysian Palm Oil Board |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | upm-1033162023-06-26T07:37:58Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/103316/ Structural design of a passive wearable exoskeleton to assist oil palm harvesting operation Mohamad, Muhammad Fuad Sowat, Sharence Nai Selamat, Hazlina Azaman, Aizreena Harith, Hazreen H. Harvesting of oil palm fresh fruit bunches is still performed manually, involving extensive energy, awkward postures or repetitive motion, and often under strenuous conditions. Exoskeleton technologies are increasingly being explored for performance augmentation and ergonomics intervention in industrial settings. For challenging environments, like the oil palm plantation, the dynamic interactions between user, task and environment is non-trivial. Importantly, an exoskeleton should not impede a worker’s movement and task performance throughout the period of wear. Intrinsically, designing an exoskeleton for oil palm harvesting entails that the dynamic interactions between the harvester, the pole, and surrounding objects is considered early in the design process. We adopted the systems approach to designing an upper limb exoskeleton to assist oil palm harvesters. The proposed design is a slimline passive exoskeleton that provides an assistive force through compression springs in the upper arm region. Structural analysis and a preliminary prototype evaluation were performed for design verification. The weakest component was the back plate. Nevertheless, permanent deformation would only occur when an equivalent of 26 kg load is applied to the exoskeleton arm.Future work includes optimising the design and elucidating its long-term effects on the harvester’s efficiency and field productivity through biomechanical analysis and field tests. Malaysian Palm Oil Board 2022 Article PeerReviewed Mohamad, Muhammad Fuad and Sowat, Sharence Nai and Selamat, Hazlina and Azaman, Aizreena and Harith, Hazreen H. (2022) Structural design of a passive wearable exoskeleton to assist oil palm harvesting operation. Journal of Oil Palm Research. pp. 1-15. ISSN 2811-4701 (In Press) http://jopr.mpob.gov.my/structural-design-of-a-passive-wearable-exoskeleton-to-assist-oil-palm-harvesting-operation/ 10.21894/jopr.2022.0075 |
| spellingShingle | Mohamad, Muhammad Fuad Sowat, Sharence Nai Selamat, Hazlina Azaman, Aizreena Harith, Hazreen H. Structural design of a passive wearable exoskeleton to assist oil palm harvesting operation |
| title | Structural design of a passive wearable exoskeleton to assist oil palm harvesting operation |
| title_full | Structural design of a passive wearable exoskeleton to assist oil palm harvesting operation |
| title_fullStr | Structural design of a passive wearable exoskeleton to assist oil palm harvesting operation |
| title_full_unstemmed | Structural design of a passive wearable exoskeleton to assist oil palm harvesting operation |
| title_short | Structural design of a passive wearable exoskeleton to assist oil palm harvesting operation |
| title_sort | structural design of a passive wearable exoskeleton to assist oil palm harvesting operation |
| url | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/103316/ http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/103316/ http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/103316/ |