Superhuman
The term ‘exoskeleton’ refers
to a structural reinforcement
on the outside of the body; in
nature, insects and spiders
have them, while fish and
mammals like us carry our reinforcement
on the inside (an endoskeleton). In the
human world, wearable exoskeletons
for industrial workers have only recently
spread from exclusively medical
applications.
The four models profiled in this
article – which are not intended to be an
exhaustive or even representative sample
of the market – share many common
characteristics. All are for able-bodied
people to help reduce injury in the long
term as either a
primary or
secondary goal, although
none has compiled the
long-term data required
to be able to prove that.
All are passive, which
means no motors or
batteries, but instead
employ some kind of
spring mechanism. All are
wearable, and in particular
worn like a hiking backpack: on
the back, held in place with shoulder
straps, a hip belt and perhaps other
connectors at the chest or legs. As they
are intended to redistribute forces acting
on one part of the body to another, the fit
is an important factor.
Also, all of them have been developed
with input from medical specialists who
have expertise developing rehabilitation
aids for injured people. Some of the
developers were corporate spin-outs from
those institutions. Those connections
also helped provide objective
laboratory-based data. That
information complemented
the subjective feedback and
evaluations of multiple
generations of prototypes
by potential users.
Two of the four
designs, the EksoVest
and Comau Mate, do
essentially the same job
in the same industry.
The problem that
they aim to solve is a
consequence
of the way that
vehicles are
manufactured; at
various points, human
workers stand underneath
the vehicle, arms up, to screw
in some bolts or perform other tasks.
As Zach Haas from Ekso Bionics puts
it, “If the Fords of the world could build
trucks at benchtop height, I guarantee
that they would, the same way as if they
could have robots put in these screws
on the underside of these vehicles, they
would be doing it. But unfortunately, cars,
planes, or railcar manufacturing requires
people to build something so big that
at some point of the assembly process
the best option is to raise it up into
the air and work on it from underneath,
unfortunately.”
This position places lots of strain
on workers’ shoulder muscles. Both
designs resulted from collaboration with
automobile OEMs, Ford and Fiat Chrysler
Automobiles (FCA) respectively, to
develop wearables that would support the
workers’ arms when they were extended
out in front of them at around 90°; the
movement of raising the arms known as
abduction (as opposed to bringing them
Popular in comic books and science fiction, wearable
exoskeletons are in fact being made and used today, with more
coming next year. Although far humbler than Tony Stark’s Iron
Man suit, they still offer a real benefit to industrial workers
14 www.ied.org.uk
/www.ied.org.uk