B9 Proposal of muscular fatigue model to evaluate muscle fatigue progress under several muscular force patterns

Abstract

For several decades, factory automation or unmanned factory productivity has been progressed to realize much higher productivity in manufacturing. However, human centered manufacturing system is getting attention to realize much more flexibility for manufacturing of wide product variety and volume. In this study, a mechanism of muscle fatigue is investigated, and a muscular fatigue model to evaluate muscle fatigue progress under several muscular force patterns is proposed. Furthermore, the endurance time for keeping constant force by the participant is estimated considering physical characteristics of the participant. In order to show the effectiveness of the proposed method, experimental verifications were conducted. The experimental results had a good agreement with the evaluation of muscle fatigue progress using the proposed method. The proposed model contributes to evaluate the ergonomic working environments and the comfortable working motions.