Static Joint Torque Determination of a Human Model for Standing and Seating Tasks Considering Balance

Abstract

Estimation of the risk of injury to human different joints during occupational tasks plays an important role to reduce injuries before the operators carry out the tasks. This paper presents a methodology for determining the static joint torques of a human model considering balance for both standing and seating tasks such as weight lifting, material handling, and seated operating tasks in the assembly line. A high fidelity human model has been developed, and recursive dynamics has been used to formulate the static equation of motion. An alternative and efficient formulation of the zero-moment point for static balance and the approximated (ground/seat) support reaction forces/moments are derived from the resultant reaction loads, which includes the gravity and externally applied loads. The proposed method can be used for both standing and seating tasks for assessing the stability/balance of the posture. The proposed formulation can be beneficial to physics-based simulation of humanoids and human models. Also, the calculated joint torques can be considered as an indicator to assess the risks of injuries when human models perform various tasks. The computational time for each case is close to 0.015 s.