Gadgetory

our Bionic suits the future of how we work exoskeletons have been around both in concept and in practice for decades most people probably think of the bulky suits that Tony Stark wears but that doesn't seem to be the future of exoskeletons the future is modular lightweight and maybe even right in your workplace this is Ford's final assembly plant in Wayne Michigan if you've never been to a car factory before which I had not it's kind of what you might think it would be like there are lots of moving parts a steady stream of car husks being transformed into something drivable and a lot of people hard at work 3,500 of them in this specific plant one of those workers stands out he's one of four people at Ford who have been testing an exoskeleton vest my name is Paul Collins I go by woody I've been a Ford Motor Company since January of 95 what I do most of the day is I work over my head I install a carbon cane on the c-max I also put rubber grommets in on the focus on the SDN on the báb units and pretty much that's what I do most of the day long almost 70 calories an hour so how many times a day are you lifting your dad I couldn't tell you I don't know I lift my arms probably seven or eight times on each vehicle so times that by 615 it's a lot enter the vest since May Paul has been wearing an exoskeleton adjusted to his height and arm length so when you're lifting your arms now where are you getting the assistance is it on the way up yeah as I come up here as soon as I right now right now it's lifting my arms as I'm right now my muscles are holding my arms up at all it's all the best Paul told me there was a pretty significant adjustment period and that wearing the vest was at first like wearing any pair of boots but after a few weeks he was sold the energy level I have now versus what I had before is a hundred percent different now that when I go home at bay at night my my wife says let's go somewhere I jump up get in the shower I have a more energy to do things around the house my grandkids come over I can play with them versus going home and popping down to couch and feeling like you're dead until you got to go to sleep and get up and come and I'll do it all over again the next day for Ford the exoskeleton is not about giving people superhuman strength it's more about preventing injury caused by repeating the same motion hundreds or even thousands of times a day we're trying to further reduce the number of injuries that we have in our plants but if you look at the body parts that are still getting injured it's predominately the shoulder that's our number one joint for injury it's also the longest to return to full functionality and most costly just because of the soft tissues in your shoulder so we're really trying to prevent shoulder injuries in our assembly plan that's Marty Smith's he's not gonna mix engineer who works on human systems and virtual manufacturing at Ford he's the one who's been evaluating different options for exoskeletons and ultimately decided to work with the company XO on this vest how many people right now are using this so we only have four right now in the Michigan area so we've got a couple at Flat Rock assembly and a couple at Michigan assembly and they've been using them pretty much full-time since May how much do they cost the devices are around 6500 dollars apiece yeah really doesn't feel like I'm carrying a nine extra pounds I think I felt worse after Thanksgiving dinner than I feel right now it's probably 11 or 12 extra pounds if you eat like I do speak for yourself the best that Ford is trying out happens to not have any electronics in it but some exosuits do like this lower body exoskeleton from sue decks a california-based company that's also working on modular exoskeletons so we founded a company in 2012 and we were at UC Berkeley as graduate students under professor Katherine II what problem were you and your team hoping to solve when you decided to make these we're hoping to solve a problem that people have without replacing the people for industrial use and they have very harsh environments they get back injuries shoulder injuries and injuries all the time so you're hoping to make their work environment better and do these have electronics in them not all of them only the latex has electronics the electronics there are just to trigger the mechanism not necessarily running the mechanism so it's a very lightweight low battery system okay Bluetooth using yes so the idea is that if you're wearing an exoskeleton with electronics it's communicating but it's not actually doing the work for you exactly okay so you see the exoskeleton is something that can help humans do more robotic like work she was doing a body work I would I would call it like robots hoping she would work rather than humans in robots work yeah sue Dax also makes exoskeletons for medical use cases they're first released exoskeleton the Phoenix has literally allowed paralyzed people to walk again but medical exoskeletons while arguably offering more significant benefits also tend to be a lot more expensive and need FDA approval as far as our product map we have variety of exoskeletons one of them exoskeletons for elderly we can actually walk for the longer distances without getting tired we also have exoskeletons for people who want to run they can run longer distances without getting tired so their oxygen consumptions drops and there will be less fatigue so that's another product there was which is coming out so we are looking at variety of element to give a little bit of an enhancement to the person either to reduce injuries or at the capability okay so exoskeletons are not a new technology journals and research papers point exoskeletons that were being developed back in the 1960s often from military purposes the idea was to increase the capabilities of ground soldiers beyond that of a human since then exoskeletons have taken on a life of their own whether they've appeared in pop culture at trade shows or in much more legitimate use cases in Japan for example where both an aging and shrinking population mean people are working into their 60s companies like Panasonic Honda and Cyberdyne have introduced a bunch of different industrial exoskeletons but exoskeletons are still far from mainstream one big challenge has always been comfort and design in case that wasn't obvious from the videos you're looking at even when the benefits are clear they can take some getting used to I have this fear of falling backwards suddenly that I don't normally feel standing up it's kind of like I feel like if I fell backwards now I wouldn't actually know what to do right the economics of exoskeletons are also a challenge according to rich Mahoney whose company seismic is working on what he calls powered clothing what's really interesting is that from a from an industrial and medical point of view it is actually very difficult to bring any product to market not just an exoskeleton there hasn't really been a form of an exoskeleton at a price point and a use case that makes sense for consumer applications the jury is still out on which market for exoskeletons could potentially be the biggest some analysts say they make the most sense in the military others say they're more valuable in healthcare or in the workplace more big-name companies have been experimenting with them including Siemens and Lowe's but they're still relatively rare but there's no doubt that this category of wearable robotics has advanced over the past several years the future of exoskeletons and and powered clothing for that matter is really related to the development of the technologies that you need to design them and so motors batteries sensors and so any developments that make motors more powerful and efficient that make batteries more condensed that make sensors smaller and more efficient are going to allow better exoskeletons that still deliver the power that you need do you envision a future in which our exoskeletons are completely connected they're smarter they're adjusting to you in real time absolutely right now to us this is like the very earliest stage we are expecting a lot more clever devices just like any other technology like your cell phone like five 10 years ago was different than the cell phones you have right now and as you go along these things will get added into that it's all responsibility to make sure those features coming in at the lowest cost to people mostly because the customer doesn't have much money this is not a luxury item this is for workers and also for people with mobility disorders who really need these devices so maintaining highest performance at lowest costs is an engineering challenge thank you good thank you who's a pleasure nice to talk to you is pleasure okay did you get that party this is crazy I feel like I could use this in the ladies room but I don't want time to see