Exoskeletonit ja robottipuvut

A new lightweight, low-profile and inexpensive ankle exoskeleton could be widely used among elderly people, those with impaired lower-leg muscle strength and workers whose jobs require substantial walking or running.

Developed by Vanderbilt mechanical engineers, the device is believed to be the first ankle exoskeleton that could be worn under clothes without restricting motion. It does not require additional components such as batteries or actuators carried on the back or waist.

The study, published online by IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, builds on a successful and widely cited ankle exoskeleton concept from other researchers in 2015.

"We've shown how an unpowered ankle exoskeleton could be redesigned to fit under clothing and inside/under shoes so it more seamlessly integrates into daily life," said Matt Yandell, a mechanical engineering Ph.D. student and lead author of the study.

In a significant design advancement, the team invented an unpowered friction clutch mechanism that fits under the foot or shoe and is no thicker than a typical shoe insole. The complete device, which includes a soft shank sleeve and assistive spring, weighs just over one pound.

The unpowered ankle exoskeleton costs less than $100 to fabricate, without factoring in optimized design for manufacturing and economies of scale.

"Our design is lightweight, low profile, quiet, uses no motor or batteries, it is low cost to manufacture, and naturally adapts to different walking speeds to assist the ankle muscles," said Karl Zelik, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and senior author on the study.

Zelik will be presenting this work next week at the Wearable Robotics Association Conference in Phoenix, Arizona.

The potential applications are broad, from helping aging people stay active to assisting recreational walkers, hikers or runners, he said.

"It could also help reduce fatigue in occupations that involve lots of walking, such as postal and warehouse workers, and soldiers in the field," Zelik said.

Joshua Tacca, BE'18, also is a co-author. He is now a graduate student in the Integrative Physiology Department at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Several other Vanderbilt undergraduate engineering students also contributed to the device design and pilot testing.
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/A...clothes_for_potential_broad_adoption_999.html

 

Sagittarius is a force augmentation exoskeleton designed to offload 75 lbs. of payload from an able-bodied operator. Currently under development, shown here the exoskeleton is compensating for its own weight while allowing an operator to move freely.


Tuo on ensimmäinen mitä edes ajattelisin Power Armor projektia varten. Ehkä ensimmäinen sellainen tulee 10 - 15 vuoden sisällä ulos labroista.
 

Exosuits—wearable robotic technologies that enhance our physical abilities—are slowly but steadily leaving the world of comic books and becoming a practical reality. This week, scientists introduced an exosuit that seems to reach a new milestone, helping users both walk and run with less effort.

The exosuit is the result of a collaboration between researchers from Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, the University of Nebraska Omaha, and Chung-Ang University in Seoul, South Korea. Perhaps more accurately described as a pair of exoshorts, the device is lightweight, fully portable, and mostly made out of a flexible material (except for the battery and motor unit). It works by using motors to pull cables that help extend the hips in a naturalistic and ideally optimum way as we move our legs, which should then reduce the amount of energy our bodies expend in order to move.


Previous exosuits could already reduce the energy costs of walking, according to Philippe Malcolm, a biomechanics expert at the University of Nebraska Omaha and senior researcher on the project. Newer, soft exosuits have been able to do this without feeling rigid and restricting range of movement. But there’s been less luck in creating portable technology that enhances a person’s ability to run, which relies on different joint and bodily movements than walking. And though a typical human can easily transition from walking to running at a moment’s notice, the same hasn’t been true for exosuits.

“In order to be able to assist not only running or walking, we needed a system,” Malcolm told Gizmodo by phone. To get over this hurdle, the team created an algorithm that detects whether the person is running or walking. Depending on the movement, it switches to the needed “force profile” for the exosuit to do its job.
https://gizmodo.com/these-robotic-shorts-make-walking-and-running-easier-1837253646
 
Tommosenhan voisi integroida brittityyliseen valjastetsariin melko helposti

Kun se tulee ulos valjaat voi mahdollisesti tulla mukana. First Gen vehkeet voi olla hintavia, eli yli tonnin ja sitten tulee nopeasti alas. Itse ajattelin että varsinkin sotilaille tämä on jotakin mitä he ovat toivoneet hieman aikaa.
 
No niin. Nysse se eka sukupolvi on täällä.

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Guardian XO, tuotanto malli ehdotus


One year ago, for IEEE Spectrum’s special report on the Top Tech for 2019, Sarcos Robotics promised that by the end of the year they’d be ready to ship a powered exoskeleton that would be the future of industrial work. And late last month, Sarcos invited us to Salt Lake City, Utah, to see what that future looks like.

Sarcos has been developing powered exoskeletons and the robotic technologies that make them possible for decades, and the lobby of the company’s headquarters is a resting place for concepts and prototype hardware that’s been abandoned along the way. But now, Sarcos is ready to unveil the prototype of the Guardian XO, a strength-multiplying exoskeleton that’s about to begin shipping.

As our introductory briefing concludes, Sarcos CEO Ben Wolff is visibly excited to be able to show off what they’ve been working on in their lab. “If you were to ask the question, What does 30 years and $300 million look like,” Wolff tells us, “you're going to see it downstairs.”
https://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton...robots/sarcos-guardian-xo-powered-exoskeleton

The Sarcos Guardian XO is a 24-degrees-of-freedom full-body robotic exoskeleton. While wearing it, a human can lift 200 pounds (90 kilograms) while feeling like they’re lifting just 10 lbs (4.5 kg). The Guardian XO is fully electrical and untethered with a runtime of 2 hours, and hot-swappable battery packs can keep it going for a full work day. It takes seconds to put on and take off, and Sarcos says new users can be trained to use the system in minutes. One Guardian XO costs $100,000 per year to rent, and the company will be shipping its first batch of alpha units to customers (including both heavy industry and the U.S. military) in January.

sata tonnia per puku per vuosi, ehkä tuo liisaus hinta tulee jollakin tavalla alas kun massatuotanto alkaa
 
Viimeksi muokattu:
Laitan tänne koska en keksi parempaa paikkaa, mutta tarve aktiivikylmennetylle puvulle voi tulla jossain vaiheessa eteen.

 
Laitan tänne koska en keksi parempaa paikkaa, mutta tarve aktiivikylmennetylle puvulle voi tulla jossain vaiheessa eteen.

Mieleeni tulee tarve pelastustoimessa.
Savusukeltajaa uhkaa ylilämpeneminen ja kemikaalisukelluksessa on sama ongelma. Markkinoilla on olemassa jäähdytysliivejä, mutta ne eivät ilmeisesti ole kovin käytännöllisiä.

Ongelma on siis jäähdytysjärjestelmän integrointi muuhun suojavarustukseen.

Onneksi kehitys kehittyy.
 
Taiwan's going to take a shot at developing military exoskeletons.

The nation's Overseas Community Affairs Council decided its English-language readers needed to know about a proposed $8.3m Armaments Bureau proposal to "develop a powered exoskeleton, a wearable mechanized system that magnifies movements, allowing enhanced ability to perform physical tasks".

"The military plans to use the suits in wartime and in post-disaster rescue and relief missions," the announcement revealed, before noting that only a few nations have military exoskeletons and they're hardly likely to share their technology. And even if they did, the announcement said, they probably aren't the right size for Taiwanese soldiers.

The announcement said the Armaments Bureau is "working closely with private medical technology, automation and robotics companies, as well as local universities and the military’s top research institution, the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology".

Left unsaid was that in 2019 China conducted a competition to develop military exoskeletons
 
“A unique feature of our soft muscles compared to others is that we can tune their generated force by varying the stretch ratio of the inner silicone tube at the time they are fabricated, which provides high flexibility for use in specific applications,” Do says.

The researchers used a simple, low-cost fabrication technique, in which a long, thin silicone tube is directly inserted into a hollow microcoil to produce the artificial muscles, with a diameter ranging from a few hundred micrometers to several millimeters. “With this method, we could mass-produce soft artificial muscles at any scale and size—diameter could be down to 0.5 millimeters, and length at least 5 meters,” Do says.

The filament structure of the muscles allows them to be stored in spools and cut to meet specific length requirements. The team used two methods to create smart fibers from the artificial muscles. One was using them as active yarns to braid, weave, or knit into active fabrics using traditional textile-making technologies. The other was by integrating them directly into conventional, passive fabrics.

The combination of hydraulic pressure, fast response times, light weight, small size, and high flexibility makes the UNSW’s smart textiles versatile and programmable. According to Do, the expansion and contraction of their active fabrics is similar to those of human muscle fibers.

This versatility opens up potential applications in soft robotics, including shape-shifting structures, biomimicking soft robots, locomotion robots, and smart garments. There are possibilities for use as medical/therapeutic wearables, as assistive devices for those needing help with movement, and as soft robots to aid the rescue and recovery of people trapped in confined spaces.
 
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The U.S. Army’s Pathfinder program — led by a collaborative team of Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and engineers at Vanderbilt University — brought about the design and testing of unique, exoskeleton prototypes to augment lifting capabilities and reduce back strain for sustainment and logistics operations.

The research and development of the soft, lightweight, unpowered exoskeleton, called the Soldier Assistive Bionic Exosuit for Resupply, or SABER, has moved from the Pathfinder team to the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Soldier Center, or DEVCOM SC. The DEVCOM SC team is preparing the suit for manufacturing and robust field trial use by the Army.
Working with Soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division, researchers at Vanderbilt designed SABER as a wearable device that is soft, lightweight and form fitting. This unmotorized device can be selectively engaged by the Soldier to assist lifting capabilities.

The exosuit design addresses needs that have been identified by the Soldiers, such as aiding strenuous lifting tasks like ammunition resupply and reducing injury and fatigue, critical to readiness over sustained periods.

“We spent the first few months focused on interviewing, observing and spending time with Soldiers,” said Dr. Karl Zelik, associate professor of mechanical engineering, Vanderbilt University. “We didn’t try to create Iron Man — a complex, full-body, rigid, unrealistic suit. Instead, we started by deeply understanding Soldier needs to develop a lightweight, low-profile, non-powered wearable tool that helps provide much-needed assistance without slowing Soldiers down or interfering with other operational tasks.”

To develop the idea for this project, Vanderbilt engineers engaged Soldiers in frequent interviews, design sprints and field tests to identify critical problems hindering their daily duties in the field. Physical overexertion stood out as a problem in need of a rapid solution.

To address strength and endurance limitations associated with material handling and field artillery, Vanderbilt researchers, engineers, technology translation experts and other military partners — working alongside Soldiers — took an exoskeleton technology Vanderbilt had previously designed for commercial use and spent a year of iterative development and testing to transform it into the SABER system.
More than 100 Soldiers participated in the testing of the exosuit at three different bases, reporting less back strain and greater endurance while wearing SABER prototypes.

“Over the course of the day, lifting 60-pound rounds you get worn out, especially after hours. It takes a toll on your body,” said Pfc. Dale Paulson, 101st Airborne Division. “Wearing the suit really helped a lot, especially with getting the rounds out of the back of the truck. It felt like it gave me an extra boost. I didn’t have to work as hard. I feel like it helped me move quicker.”

Biomechanical evaluations revealed that the three-pound suit reduced stress on Soldiers’ backs by more than 100 pounds while lifting. Additionally, most Soldiers increased their endurance by over 60 percent while wearing SABER.

An overwhelming 90 percent of Soldiers surveyed after operational field testing in May 2022 believed the exosuit increased their ability to perform job tasks, and all of them reported that they would be likely to wear it for their job if it were developed into a product and made available to them.
 
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