Force sensing gloves : power assistive device

Abstract

Injuries sustained during work is both damaging to employers and employees alike. Having an ergonomic solution to aid in heavy duty jobs such as lifting loads can make work significantly easier and safer. However, most machines that aid in lifting are only found in warehouses or manufacturing plants. Power Assistive Devices are a genre of smaller machines that are targeted at providing assistance to people in the form of additional power. Power Assistive Devices can help in many industries apart from just warehouses and plants, such as healthcare and even in the aviation industry. This project aims to create an ergonomic and easy to use force sensing glove prototype that can be integrated into a Power Assistive Device prototype. This glove prototype is split into 2 main parts, the 3D printed support structure and the electrical circuit components for data reading and processing. The testing and development of each component, as well as test methodologies and results will be discussed in this report.