Real world article
(written from a production point of view)

Sketch of proposed vehicle
According to the Star Trek: Voyager Technical Manual (p. 20), an EVA workpod was "a small elongated, hexagonal capsule sized to fit one crewmember. The workpod is equipped with manipulator arms containing various tools for repair and exploration tasks outside the ship, and operates on low-power thrusters only. Voyager normally carries four workpods."
These EV suit/workbee hybrids were proposed during the production of VOY Season 1 as vehicles that could potentially appear in the series. They, along with the inclusion of a complement of Type 15 shuttlepods, never came to fruition.