From Vision to Assistance: Gaze and Vision-Enabled Adaptive Control for a Back-Support Exoskeleton

Back-support exoskeletons have been proposed to mitigate spinal loading in industrial handling, yet their effectiveness critically depends on timely and context-aware assistance. Most existing approaches rely either on load-estimation techniques (e.g., EMG, IMU) or on vision systems that do not directly inform control. In this work, we present a vision-gated control framework for an active lumbar occupational exoskeleton that leverages egocentric vision with wearable gaze tracking. The proposed system integrates real-time grasp detection from a first-person YOLO-based perception system, a finite-state machine (FSM) for task progression, and a variable admittance controller to adapt torque delivery to both posture and object state. A user study with 15 participants performing stooping load lifting trials under three conditions (no exoskeleton, exoskeleton without vision, exoskeleton with vision) shows that vision-gated assistance significantly reduces perceived physical demand and improves fluency, trust, and comfort. Quantitative analysis reveals earlier and stronger assistance when vision is enabled, while questionnaire results confirm user preference for the vision-gated mode. These findings highlight the potential of egocentric vision to enhance the responsiveness, ergonomics, safety, and acceptance of back-support exoskeletons.