Power Assisting Device for workers in Meat Works

Motivation

People de-boning beef take 2 years to train but only last 15 years on the job before shoulder and elbow injuries force them to stop.

Industry group Meat and Livestock Australia commissioned a power assist device research project to explore ways to fix this.

Activity

MechAdept assisted in the creation of a power assist device to help with de-boning beef. This admittance type device has 6 degrees of freedom. 2 DOF are powered to provide the assistive force, with a 6 DOF force-torque sensor to measure the users intent. A particularly challenging aspect of this device was the requirement that it be washed often with a pressurized spray of corrosive cleaner.

MechAdept augmented an existing team, providing concept generation, kinematics and manipulability studies, experience prototype design, mechanical design of prototype subassemblies, and mechanical design of final device subassemblies.