World’s first affordable powered exoskeleton is almost here: Prepare for mech wars
The first affordable,
mass-produced robotic exoskeleton will be on sale next year from
Panasonic. For 500,000 yen, or slightly under $5,000, this full-body
power garment will let you hoist 100-kilo (220-pound) objects and move
at speeds up to 8 kph (5 mph). While this device would make a nice
addition to any wardrobe, will it have immediate practical value, or
will it mainly be purchased by hobbyists and educators as a base
platform for mere experimentation?
Activelink, the Panasonic
subsidiary responsible for the suit, plans to begin rollout of the first
batch of 1000 starting in 2015. At its heart will be a lithium-ion
battery pack that can provide for several hours of general purpose
activity. We might suppose such activities would just be the familiar
exoskeletal fare — hefting small vats of nuclear soup in disaster
situations, or carrying cases of munitions. However, if enough designers
get hold of this potentially hackable, wearable toolbox, we might
actually begin to see some interesting applications emerge.
While the suit might let you out
thumb a lobster, the included grippers are no jaws of life. Lacking
high-tech hydraulics, there will be no car crushing. Once some video of
the suit performing some real field tests is released we might get a
better idea of how fast, and accurate, under load, the suit might be.
Where this exoskeleton may shine, would be if interchangeable tool
systems can be developed to swap in for the grippers. The designers
envision a suite of tools for things like hammering, drilling, or
scooping operations, similar in fact, to those already designed into one
the most innovative robotic systems ever built — the Athlete rover now
under testing at NASA’s JPL (Jet Propulsion Labs). It is probably worth
mentioning a few things about this system, to give some idea of where
practical exoskeletal worksuits could be headed.
The hexapodal Athlete is not an
exoskeleton for a person; it is of a much larger scale, more of an
exoskeleton for a car. Actually, it is a kind of car itself, having
wheels affixed to one side of each end effector, and tool-changer
interface on the other. In theory one could chop up a handful of
Segways, and affix them to off-the-shelf Fanuc robotic arms using
standard CNC tool holders on each end, but that does not seem to be what
was done by JPL. I asked the head engineer on the Athlete program,
Brian Wilcox, why they did not go with industry standards here. He
indicated that in order to meet the stiff requirements for spaceflight
(like weight, reliability, and withstanding harsh environmental
conditions) hydraulics and heavy steel designs would be precluded.
That is unfortunate because a
modern CNC tool interface, with clamping forces measured in tons of
pressure, spindle “run-out” accuracies in ten-thousands of an inch, RPMs
in the tens of thousands at 20-hp, and angular positioning to tenths of
a degree, would make one heck of a hand. Once the limb hardware designs
move into this regime, the major limitation will probably become one of
control. Although we are owed a mind-controlled robot exoskeleton
by the 2014 World Cup to make the opening kickoff, nervous control of
actual tools will be a challenge. Wearable 3D printers giving one the
ability to go from mental construct directly to physical construct,
while imaginable, are still in the realm of fiction.
For now Panasonic is looking to
partner with companies that can move the suit to the masses. Rental
agreements, much like those which have been successful with the Segway
are envisioned, and before too long we try one out at the local mall.
The jury is still out however on whether the suit will remain little
more than a gimmicky plaything, or something for the next year’s
Craftsman catalog.
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source: extremetech.com
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