In Europe’s industry and industrial manufacturing processes, manual material handling is one of the most frequent operations. This material handling is carried out by workers. However, load manipulation and manual handling has a severe impact on workers’ health. Work related low back pain and injuries are the most common musculoskeletal disorders and they are directly related to frequent manual handling of heavy loads.

The goal of Robo-Mate is to develop a user-friendly intelligent light or mid-weight human-robotic exoskeleton for manual handling work in different industries. The device will be deployable within half a day and will not require task specific programming. The newly developed exoskeleton will be highly flexible and used directly in craft or mass production or in auxiliary processes.

More Details on the Robo- Mate Project can be found on http://www.robo-mate.eu/

People

All DF People
Prof. Leonard O Sullivan
Principle Investigator
Kirsten Huysamen
PhD Researcher
Dr. Valerie Power
Dr. Valerie Power
Post Doctoral Researcher

Design Practice & Education

We are actively engaged in research for design education, continuing professional development and design practice.
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Design for Health

Our user-centered work in health and wellness focuses on humanising technology that benefits both patients and clinicians.
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Design for Sustainability & Society

Our research projects take a design led approach to framing and tackling societal, environmental and consumption issues.
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Human Factors in industry

Our research on work related musculoskeletal disorders examines occupational health and industrial ergonomics.
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