A third-year doctoral student at LSU has built an exoskeleton to help maximize safety and minimize fatigue for construction workers, especially women.
M.G. Taylor is a graduate research assistant in the textiles, apparel design and merchandising program at LSU. She has been working on this personal protective equipment project in collaboration with the construction engineering program.
The team was tasked with creating external PPE gear, or an exoskeleton. Taylor said that the exoskeleton was designed to support construction site workers. She also said that repeated stress injuries often cause workers to end their careers sooner than they would want to.
“The exoskeleton is a two-parter. On top, we have a harness that holds the exoskeleton in place,” Taylor said. “We had to figure out a way to distribute the weight of the lower body exoskeleton over the trunk and shoulders of the body.”
The team designed a backpack-like zipper pouch for the electronic motor in the lower half of the exoskeleton. Then, a few redesigns later, the team completed the lower part of the body, with breathing holes in the prototype made of polylactic acid filament that goes from thigh to ankle.
“We’re about to print [a prototype] in a carbon fiber integrated filament so that it is much stronger for its intended purpose: protection,” Taylor said.
According to Taylor, the researchers use a modeling software called CLO, which is similar to a computer-aided design software, but for fashion.
In CLO, she said they are able to model clothes in 3D and work through multiple designs before finally laser-cutting panels, heat-bonding them and finally sewing them together.
“The next step is user testing, and that’s important because why design something if it doesn’t work for its users?” Taylor said. “Sometimes, PPE doesn’t fit well, so we really want to be sure, and we also make comfortably fitting gear that people will actually want to use over the course of a working day.”
Taylor said that construction brands started creating pants for other body types — besides thin cisgender men — only around two years ago, with many users having to wear an extra belt to ensure they are in proper PPE.
“The belt anecdote is actually quite relevant because if you get it caught on something, you can get pulled by the machinery, you can fall, you can be quite severely injured just because you have pants that didn’t fit you,” Taylor said.
The exoskeleton can be used in multiple fields that require the usage of heavy machinery, like in petroleum engineering.
Blake Samson is a petroleum engineering freshman from Maumelle, Ark., and he thinks the design is great for his field. He said the motor function is a great idea, but he wants to see some sort of padding inside the legs for comfort.
“In petroleum engineering, it would be a godsend to alleviate fatigue and physical weakness, thus preventing accidents due to weakened muscles,” Samson said. “Heavy machinery is nothing to mess with, and someone struggling to walk after a long day is prone to have something potentially fatal happen to them near the bulky and powerful equipment.”
Taylor said that while the whole exoskeleton would be quite expensive, the idea is that the workers will own their own upper vest portion while the construction companies would provide the bottom half, including the motor.
“We’re able to bring construction, engineering and fashion together in a meaningful way. That is already a unique team that is poised to win,” Taylor said.
