Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there everyone, and welcome to Forward Thinking.
Speaker 1: The podcast that listened to Futuring, says Binary Solo zero
Speaker 1: zero zero zero zero zero one. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm
Speaker 1: Lauren Vocum, and I'm Joe McCormick. And uh, guys, um,
Speaker 1: you're familiar with the great documentary Aliens. Oh yeah, how
Speaker 1: have we not talked about exoskeletons yet? I know, I
Speaker 1: know we had day is the day. Yeah, there's so
Speaker 1: many examples in science fiction, and I mean I personally
Speaker 1: love lots of them, like the Loader and Aliens. While
Speaker 1: it's entirely just this huge functional thing that's meant to
Speaker 1: allow a person to load heavy material, yeah onto a spacecraft.
Speaker 1: I mean that's just a simple example, but it's still
Speaker 1: really awesome. It's so great because in terms of the
Speaker 1: construction of the narrative, it's one of the best sci
Speaker 1: fi versions of Chekhov's gun Yes in movie history. When
Speaker 1: Ripley uses it early on to you know, show up
Speaker 1: the dudes who think that she can't do anything. She's
Speaker 1: a girl. There should totally be a little a little
Speaker 1: caption that flashes underneath that scene saying this is important. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then of course later, oh, that's just the power.
Speaker 1: Don't don't say the line. Don't say the line, of course,
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, power, so many exoskeleton. Everybody loves iron Man,
Speaker 1: iron Man. Well, okay, until two thousand eight, a small
Speaker 1: number of people loved iron Man, and now everyone loves
Speaker 1: mostly Robert Downey Jr. Also, I guess iron Man. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: Robert Downey Jr. Lives his life as if he were
Speaker 1: Iron Man, or at least Tony Stark. So but we've
Speaker 1: got other examples. Uh see Master Chief's armor, the Spartan arm,
Speaker 1: which is arguably a little bit like a cyborg because
Speaker 1: I don't think that you could take that guy out
Speaker 1: of that suit and have him live, right. It's it's
Speaker 1: a combination, right, there's an exo skeleton element, and then
Speaker 1: there's also the cyborg element of the or at least
Speaker 1: the genetically modified slash cyborg element, because they do have
Speaker 1: the AI that can go into their brains. Right, But
Speaker 1: but it certainly does. That suit certainly gives him or her.
Speaker 1: There are lady Spartans true superhuman abilities. Yeah, there's uh,
Speaker 1: there's there's of course, Metroid Classic Samas, Samas Sammus. Well,
Speaker 1: if you say Samus, who answers is going to yell
Speaker 1: at you and say say Samas instead, I would I
Speaker 1: would argue that many of these examples are also based
Speaker 1: on some classic sci fi examples, like Starship Troopers, which
Speaker 1: was in fact a book before it was a really
Speaker 1: terrible film. I think you mean, terribly awesome film that's
Speaker 1: not at all what the book I believe had. It
Speaker 1: had exo skeletons that didn't show up in the movie,
Speaker 1: right right, They didn't even show up in the movie.
Speaker 1: Oh that's why I hated that movie. Cavatar had them.
Speaker 1: Giant Mex, I mean, Max are essentially exo skeletons just
Speaker 1: turned up to eleven. Yeah. Okay, so by grouping all
Speaker 1: these things together we can sort of get an understanding
Speaker 1: of what an exo skeleton is. It's a suit that
Speaker 1: you put on over your body. It doesn't replace your body,
Speaker 1: but it's sort of augments your body amplifies what you're
Speaker 1: able to do in some way, which is exactly why
Speaker 1: RoboCop is not an example of an exo skeleton. Okay,
Speaker 1: we we had a quick discussion before the podcast went
Speaker 1: live because apparently there was a correction that we needed
Speaker 1: to address on something unrelated to this podcast. I wouldn't
Speaker 1: call the discussion quick, but please go ahead. At any rate,
Speaker 1: the discussion was specifically about and ask Someone made the
Speaker 1: assertion that RoboCop in fact is wearing an exo skeleton.
Speaker 1: That's clearly not the case. Someone was under the mistaken
Speaker 1: assumption that RoboCop was wearing an exo skeleton. Uh, not
Speaker 1: correct at all. RoboCop is a human head and I
Speaker 1: think maybe part of a torso, but that's irrelevant with
Speaker 1: a robot body cyborg. Yeah yeah, if he's pretty, it's
Speaker 1: pretty Frankensteiny. Yeah. Yeah, So an exo skeleton would be
Speaker 1: if RoboCop was a regular cop who was a dude
Speaker 1: who would walk in in the morning, put the suit on,
Speaker 1: and then go out and fight crime, that would be
Speaker 1: an exo skeleton. Yes, so let's talk about some real
Speaker 1: world exo skeletons, because here's the thing, this is just
Speaker 1: science fiction, Joe, real world I'm talking about you can
Speaker 1: go out and put some of these on right now.
Speaker 1: Not only you could buy one, you could buy a
Speaker 1: couple of these. Yeah, I mean, if you have grand
Speaker 1: laying around. I got to hear this, all right. So
Speaker 1: there are lots of different types of exo skeletons, which
Speaker 1: I kind of arbitrarily divided up by the tasks they
Speaker 1: were intended to perform, because again, you know, an exo
Speaker 1: skeleton in general is meant to augment your abilities in
Speaker 1: some way, although in some case says that augmentation is
Speaker 1: really more for the purposes of entertainment, which is the
Speaker 1: first category I chose because the mainly because the the
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine a use for these first two exo
Speaker 1: skeletons beyond impressing people by the fact that you're walking
Speaker 1: around in an enormous exo skeleton, I mean, which is
Speaker 1: a pretty high impressive factor. Yeah, it's not practical unless
Speaker 1: you just want to impress people. So if you're in
Speaker 1: l A and well okay, and they have they have
Speaker 1: slight uh, they will slightly improve your your grip strength
Speaker 1: or your really these two maybe maybe they do. I
Speaker 1: don't know about the Team Skeletronics one, because that one
Speaker 1: was based solely upon human power. There's no you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of the suits we're gonna talk about today
Speaker 1: are powered suits. Right, they have an additional power source
Speaker 1: that you have to carry around with you or you're
Speaker 1: tethered somehow, because some of these are in prototype stage
Speaker 1: and aren't you know, standalone devices. Even with pure mechanical levers.
Speaker 1: Um this one that you're about to talk about can
Speaker 1: give you about twice your normal strength from what I've
Speaker 1: read on the internet. Oh wow, So skeleton Yeah, this
Speaker 1: will be the I think I said skeletronics, but Skeletonics
Speaker 1: rather Team Skeletonics UH is a group that created this
Speaker 1: this uh, purely mechanical exoskeleton, meaning not power, not power.
Speaker 1: It's powered by human So it's human powered. So if
Speaker 1: you've ever seen one of those like in the old cartoons,
Speaker 1: the boxing glove that's on the various kind of like
Speaker 1: accordion style uh system of levers and so it can
Speaker 1: extend really far out and then come back. That's kind
Speaker 1: of like the basic building block of this thing. It
Speaker 1: has all these little interconnecting levers that leverage your movements
Speaker 1: to make them bigger in the form of this exo
Speaker 1: skeleton and in fact makes you a little bit taller. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They stand about eight ft two inches tall, which is
Speaker 1: about two point five meters. Now, Lauren can you imagine
Speaker 1: towering over the world at eight ft two and it's delicious.
Speaker 1: Lauren is already Oh they were. They were originally designed
Speaker 1: by this team of like high school slash college prep
Speaker 1: students in Okinawa, which is even better, I think because
Speaker 1: it was built by kids. Yeah, and they look hilarious,
Speaker 1: like they look like something I said, they looked like
Speaker 1: something from aperture science labs, like Portal Games. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the big kind of bulbous white section looks like a
Speaker 1: hilarious clumsy science experiment. Yeah, you're you're kind of walking
Speaker 1: on these stilts. I mean, and they're and they're well
Speaker 1: balanced stilts, but still it's nonetheless, it's still to me.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of puppetry. My sister is a
Speaker 1: professional puppeteer. So the first time I ever saw one
Speaker 1: of these on a video, I've never seen it in person,
Speaker 1: but when I saw it in motion on video, the
Speaker 1: first thing I thought is, Oh, that's a puppet. It's
Speaker 1: it's a giant puppet. And that's really more or less
Speaker 1: what this one is. It's a giant puppet. Not I'm
Speaker 1: not belittling it, because again I love it's really cool.
Speaker 1: Um and you could this is one of the ones
Speaker 1: you could actually go out and buy today. Yeah, for
Speaker 1: the low price of undred dollars um you can totally
Speaker 1: purchase one, or you could rent one out for parties. Wow,
Speaker 1: I totally tell one of these at a party. Now,
Speaker 1: I gotta have a party in Tokyo, so I can
Speaker 1: have my very own Exo Skeleton performer come in and
Speaker 1: maybe make like Exo Skeleton balloon animals or something. Imagine
Speaker 1: the the wich fingers would pop them more entertaining. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that'd be fantastic. So that that's the first one we
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about. Another one that's kind of similar,
Speaker 1: In fact, some would say similar to the point of
Speaker 1: they totally stole the design is a Sagawa Electronics Powered
Speaker 1: Jacket m K three. So this one, let's stand for
Speaker 1: Mortal Kombat three. Not to my knowledge, it would be
Speaker 1: terrible if you as soon as you put on the suit,
Speaker 1: you just finishing. Oh the things are about to go
Speaker 1: bad now in this case Sgala Electronics. The name the
Speaker 1: powered Powered Jacket m K three gives a hint already
Speaker 1: that's different from the first one, right, it does actually
Speaker 1: have supplemental power that goes to it because it actually
Speaker 1: has several servos and team to be precise, that would
Speaker 1: control some of the movements. So instead of you moving
Speaker 1: your arm up you know, ten inches so that the
Speaker 1: the the robot, the exo skeleton arm goes up you
Speaker 1: know a larger amount based upon the size of the
Speaker 1: exo skeleton. In this one, you would be using controls
Speaker 1: to make certain things happen, like turn the wrists or
Speaker 1: open or close the hands. Uh. Their marketing approach is whimsical,
Speaker 1: although that whimsy led to led to a great deal
Speaker 1: of marketing success there, there was a lot of controversy
Speaker 1: when they debuted. The company started up about a year
Speaker 1: and a half after Skeletonics and UM their suit went
Speaker 1: up for sale a sing gold day after the Skeletonic
Speaker 1: suit did. And it I mean they have basically admitted
Speaker 1: that the mechanics are based on the Skeletonic suit. If
Speaker 1: you look at the two, you can see the similarities
Speaker 1: between them. They're not like the power jacket looks like
Speaker 1: it's a smaller form factor, but it's very much the
Speaker 1: same shape. Oh sure. UM, and and they are pretty
Speaker 1: proud of those of those electronics in there. UM they
Speaker 1: say that the motorization allows for much smoother motions. But
Speaker 1: it's something it's been a little bit of a of
Speaker 1: a sticking point that due to this whimsical marketing um
Speaker 1: that that they have enjoyed slightly better success. Yeah, y'all
Speaker 1: watched the demonstration video on the site. It is so weird.
Speaker 1: It is so weird and funny that I was looking
Speaker 1: at this like, are we mistake? Is this just like
Speaker 1: a prank? It's extremely tongue in cheek. Um. You know
Speaker 1: that the announcer on this thing has this really silly
Speaker 1: scar bakeup. Yeah, he's got all these uh, these fake
Speaker 1: scars all over his face where you just assume that
Speaker 1: this was probably something that he, uh that developed after
Speaker 1: an unsuccessful prototype test perhaps and the persona that he's
Speaker 1: doing is is a little bit aperture science actually, Like
Speaker 1: it's like it's very strange. Yeah, they suggest like you
Speaker 1: used the thing for battle that you you know, they've
Speaker 1: got these like dramatic scenes. It's very weird. Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's certainly it's certainly more on the entertainment side. I
Speaker 1: would argue then a lot of the other ones we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about today, but yeah, I wanted to
Speaker 1: get those out of the way because while they are entertaining,
Speaker 1: I honestly can't see them being used practically to do
Speaker 1: something that otherwise you would have trouble doing. Jonathan, where's
Speaker 1: the power loader? From Aliens? So is that real? Yet?
Speaker 1: I would argue that the power loader at least drew
Speaker 1: some inspiration after a real piece of technology that never
Speaker 1: made it into production. It never made it all the
Speaker 1: prototype stage because it was never it never worked exactly
Speaker 1: the way it was supposed to do. But there was
Speaker 1: a prototype powerloader. There was a prototype powerloader by G. E. G.
Speaker 1: E built a prototype powerloader type device in nineteen Really,
Speaker 1: it was developed in the sixties and early seventies. They
Speaker 1: were working on it for multiple years trying to get
Speaker 1: this thing to work called the Hardy Man H A
Speaker 1: R D I M A N. This thing is Have
Speaker 1: you seen the pictures? Did you guys? Look at the pictures.
Speaker 1: It looks like it was, you know, the inspiration for
Speaker 1: the powerloader. It looks like a transformer that was originally
Speaker 1: a refrigerator unfolded to have arms and legs and have
Speaker 1: a person inside it. It's not extremely elegant, is what
Speaker 1: we're saying. So this thing had some pretty incredible goals.
Speaker 1: You know, it was it was funded by the US military. Uh,
Speaker 1: so you've got the military behind it looking at something
Speaker 1: that could allow it to move huge amounts of of payload,
Speaker 1: you know, in various applications, and it could, uh in theory,
Speaker 1: allow a person to lift up to pounds or six
Speaker 1: that's heavy. Yeah, yeah, something something about twenty five times,
Speaker 1: like like you would only feel a pound for every
Speaker 1: twenty five that you lifted, right, which is pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: Had twenty eight or it was supposed to have twenty
Speaker 1: eight movable joints, and it itself weighed hundred pounds. I mean,
Speaker 1: this was no spring chicken. This wasn't something that you're
Speaker 1: gonna lightly jump up the side of a cliff, you know.
Speaker 1: So very heavy, very bulky, had large hydraulic arms. Uh.
Speaker 1: And ultimately it suffered from a lot of different problems
Speaker 1: that made GE eventually shelved the project. So they had
Speaker 1: problems with power management, like how do you actually power
Speaker 1: this thing where it's not tethered to a giant generator?
Speaker 1: How do you make sure that all the joints move properly.
Speaker 1: They eventually built an arm that you could put your
Speaker 1: arm inside and lift around. Uh. Center and fifty pounds,
Speaker 1: which is pretty impressive. However, according to at least one source,
Speaker 1: the legs gave them problems, and that when they try
Speaker 1: to activate, like try to build legs where it would
Speaker 1: you would be able to walk around in this thing,
Speaker 1: because clearly you're gonna be able to wear just the
Speaker 1: one arm if it weighs about some of the pounds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you need something that I gotta rip your arm off
Speaker 1: at the at the shoulder. Yeah. Because these things were
Speaker 1: mounted on like big pedestals in the testing phases, you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't It wasn't like in final form, So trying
Speaker 1: to build the legs and make them work. It said
Speaker 1: that that any attempt to get its legs to work
Speaker 1: resulted in a fit of mechanical st Vitus dance, which
Speaker 1: would mean that you would have no control. You would
Speaker 1: suddenly have this stomping, rampaging robot beast that's you're inside.
Speaker 1: At best, you would be witnessed to a terrible amount
Speaker 1: of destruction as you flailed around. At worst, you would
Speaker 1: be turned into a human bendy toy. Yeah. I had
Speaker 1: the question, is it worst to be inside it or
Speaker 1: outside it? Yes? I don't think anyone WINSUM. But anyway
Speaker 1: that that if you go and look at the designs
Speaker 1: and we'll link to some stuff on our social network
Speaker 1: platform so you can kind of get a look at this.
Speaker 1: It's really an impressive attempt at building a working exoskeleton.
Speaker 1: It just didn't get there all right, Well, I mean
Speaker 1: we didn't quite have the power sources or the circuitry
Speaker 1: that could be small enough to really be lightwright enough
Speaker 1: to really function at that point in time. But but
Speaker 1: the basic idea of it is what basically everything that
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about today is based on
Speaker 1: being that there are it's really too exo skeletons. It's
Speaker 1: it's it's one that you wear and then one that
Speaker 1: um and an outer one that's connected to that inner
Speaker 1: one that translates the motion. Yeah, and you have to
Speaker 1: remember also that it's easy for us to ignore this
Speaker 1: because we don't really necessarily think of it as intelligence.
Speaker 1: But this is totally part of artificial intelligence. Absolutely. It's
Speaker 1: teaching computers how we humans move and the range of
Speaker 1: motions that we can do and the range emotions that
Speaker 1: we need to do in order to complete certain tasks.
Speaker 1: That's all part of artificial intelligence. It's not just how
Speaker 1: humans think, it's how we are able to do everything. Well.
Speaker 1: Your motor skills are part of what your brain does, right, right,
Speaker 1: We just don't normally think of our motor skills as
Speaker 1: part of intelligence. You know, if we're think, if we're
Speaker 1: talking about intelligence, often that we overlook that and and
Speaker 1: the algorithms necessary to receive that input and translated into
Speaker 1: motion without injuring you or your surroundings are pretty pretty complex.
Speaker 1: This is this is really complicated stuff, which is part
Speaker 1: of the reason why it's taking so long to get
Speaker 1: an exoskeleton that you know, kind of matches what science
Speaker 1: fiction has has portrayed. Even in the more rudimentary implementations
Speaker 1: of exo skeletons, it's not a trivial task to both
Speaker 1: teach a machine how to move and also miniaturize all
Speaker 1: the components and get a form factor that works. But
Speaker 1: people have continued to work on it, and we've seen
Speaker 1: some pretty incredible implementations. For example, there's the company in
Speaker 1: Japan called Cyberdyne. But let's okay, quick, Joe, what significance
Speaker 1: does the name Cyberdyne have in science fiction? Cyberdyne is
Speaker 1: the name of the corporation and the Terminator franchise that
Speaker 1: creates sky Net and the Terminator robots. Sky Net is
Speaker 1: the super intelligence that decides to wipe out all of humanity,
Speaker 1: I think, originally designed to command their missile defense program,
Speaker 1: also creates Terminators, creates T you know, T one thousands,
Speaker 1: all the all the Robert Patricks, all the Arnold Schwarzenegger
Speaker 1: is all the what's her name from Terminator, So I'll
Speaker 1: just pretend that didn't exist. So what you're arguing is
Speaker 1: that perhaps the name Cyberdyne is not the most does
Speaker 1: of killing all humans. Okay, But but here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. They're actual their actual exoskeleton has a
Speaker 1: totally different name. I'm sure it's gonna solve all the problems.
Speaker 1: It's named how okay. How of course, being from from
Speaker 1: the Bucking Film to Space had another exam intelligence that
Speaker 1: tried to kill humans. Yeah, so it's got the Cyberdyne hall.
Speaker 1: So I mean, what can go wrong? Um No, But
Speaker 1: this this is a company that was founded by a
Speaker 1: professor from the University of Tokuba named Dr Yoshi Yoki
Speaker 1: sun Kai. And uh I thought you were gonna say,
Speaker 1: like Professor Blofeld, not quite, it's exactly his name was. No,
Speaker 1: never mind, anyway, we're not gonna we're gonna not gonna
Speaker 1: make this even more ridiculous. So, uh, the professor founded
Speaker 1: this company, and he actually has very altruistic goals according
Speaker 1: to the website. Anyways, he really wants to create an
Speaker 1: exo skeleton that can quote that's intended to rather a
Speaker 1: quote for the benefits of humankind in the field of medicine, caregiving, welfare, labor,
Speaker 1: heavy works, entertainment and so on end quote. So they
Speaker 1: are looking at lots of different purposes for this, including
Speaker 1: using it to lift heavy things in a repetitive of
Speaker 1: way to avoid injury that you might suffer either because
Speaker 1: you're lifting something that's really heavy or that you have
Speaker 1: to do a repetitive task uh throughout the day. You know,
Speaker 1: these are things that can easily create either acute or
Speaker 1: long term injuries in people. And the idea would be
Speaker 1: this particular kind of exo skeleton would take on a
Speaker 1: lot of the weight of whatever task you're doing. Right. Um,
Speaker 1: it actually hypothetically feels weightless while you're wearing it, and
Speaker 1: it works by picking up your your nerve signals subcutaneously
Speaker 1: and interpreting them into motion. Uh, they've They've also built
Speaker 1: a couple of models that are radiation shielded, presumably for
Speaker 1: work in a houkachima and clean up sites like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you look at the one that has
Speaker 1: the radiation shielding on it, you can start to see
Speaker 1: maybe why someone might think RoboCop was an exo skeleton. Yes,
Speaker 1: even though that's not correct, but very RoboCop issue. I
Speaker 1: would argue that that the design of many of these
Speaker 1: are starting to be cross influenced by some of these
Speaker 1: media portrayals. Oh sure, yeah they' There is no doubt
Speaker 1: that at least some of these designs are trying to
Speaker 1: kind of capture that same feel of various media portrayals,
Speaker 1: not all of them. Some of them are very utilitarian.
Speaker 1: They're specifically designed just to do what they're supposed to do.
Speaker 1: And we're just about to talk about a bunch of that,
Speaker 1: yes we are. Uh so, those are the cyber Dine
Speaker 1: one and the G one are the two that I
Speaker 1: listed as uh, industrial exoskeletons meant too, they were meant
Speaker 1: to try and help in these kind of work tasks.
Speaker 1: I got the military is working on these, aren't they,
Speaker 1: You know, you'd be right. First of all, of course,
Speaker 1: we mentioned in the g E one that that was
Speaker 1: funded by the military. Another military funded project was the
Speaker 1: Berkeley Lower Extremity Exo Skeleton or BLEAKS, which was funded
Speaker 1: by DARPA in two thousand. It was specifically meant to
Speaker 1: help soldiers carry heavy loads on long marches. Right like
Speaker 1: that happens so soldiers have to do all the time.
Speaker 1: So if you have to get a bunch of people
Speaker 1: with who are carrying a lot of equipment to a
Speaker 1: remote location where vehicles are not an option, then this
Speaker 1: is a way of offsetting that weight so that the
Speaker 1: soldiers are not exhausting themselves just getting from point A
Speaker 1: to point B. So that was the basic um premises
Speaker 1: of the basic the basic task that they had when
Speaker 1: they were trying to create these things. They're also looking
Speaker 1: at them not just for soldiers, but for first responders
Speaker 1: like firefighters who might need to carry quite a bit
Speaker 1: of equipment themselves in order to get to a remote
Speaker 1: location to be able to fight a fire. You know,
Speaker 1: you can't always get a fire truck there or all
Speaker 1: the other equipment that they need to be able to
Speaker 1: help people in that kind of situation. So this was
Speaker 1: a way of creating something that would support that weight.
Speaker 1: And again you're looking at kind of a harness, uh,
Speaker 1: harness that has various methods of offsetting weight and creating
Speaker 1: its own amount of energy to supplement what you have
Speaker 1: so that you can more easily carry a heavier load.
Speaker 1: It's the basic idea. Also, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: guys got a chance to watch the video, did you.
Speaker 1: I saw pictures, but I didn't watch it in motions.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I watched the video, and I've written in
Speaker 1: my notes here and I'm not gonna say it the
Speaker 1: way it is in the show, because otherwise I will
Speaker 1: blow out the microphone. But it's whisper why I said's
Speaker 1: it sounded like you're wearing a snowblower. I mean it
Speaker 1: was maybe maybe not for stealth missions, but but but
Speaker 1: but the way it's working here technically is it's it's
Speaker 1: got this pair of powered legs and the sensors and
Speaker 1: the legs and shoepads figure out what you're doing, and
Speaker 1: then hydraulics in the system do all the heavy lifting
Speaker 1: for you. It should hypothetically let you carry seventy pounds
Speaker 1: and feel as though you're only carrying five. Interesting, Well,
Speaker 1: that's pretty awesome. There's another example of military harnesses UH
Speaker 1: and Exo skeletons called the Exos two. Now, grant, there
Speaker 1: was an Exos, so it's not like they just started
Speaker 1: with Exos two. Know that the first one was more
Speaker 1: of a concept than anything else. It's still kind of
Speaker 1: in that phase. But this was developed by company called Sarcos,
Speaker 1: which was eventually acquired by Raytheon and now is a
Speaker 1: division of Raytheon. It's one of their their research and
Speaker 1: development divisions. UM, and they got a contract from DARPA
Speaker 1: to develop a powered exo skeleton suit again for the military.
Speaker 1: So the Exos, the original Exos designed by Steve Jacobson,
Speaker 1: was pretty cool, large tethered suit that could um could
Speaker 1: care could pick up a pretty impressive amount of weight.
Speaker 1: But then in UH they debuted the Exos two and
Speaker 1: they kind of tied that in with a film that
Speaker 1: was coming and they well, they they connected the first
Speaker 1: Exos with a movie called Iron Man, but Exos two
Speaker 1: they connected with another movie, Iron Man too, so UM,
Speaker 1: but it was a smaller, lighter, more streamlined unit than
Speaker 1: the original Exos and UH again pretty impressive if you
Speaker 1: ever watched the video, right, I mean it could do stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it could repeatedly lift some two pounds, you know, for
Speaker 1: for a few hours on end without getting tired. The
Speaker 1: machine apparently it made it feel like it was just
Speaker 1: ten pounds. The pilot, that's what they called the operator,
Speaker 1: was able to lift two hundred pounds and said he did.
Speaker 1: He would do fifty reps at a time and say like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the only reason I stopped because I got bored. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Or or could could punch through three inches of solid wood, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: so you could. This is where you get into that
Speaker 1: that fighting robots kind of approach, the Rockham sockem deal,
Speaker 1: which is kind of cool. Or kick a soccer ball. Yeah,
Speaker 1: actually I saw him punch a soccer ball out of
Speaker 1: the air. They toss a soccer ball to him and
Speaker 1: he went Although that's actually I mean, that sounds ridiculous
Speaker 1: after those other big, heavy, heavy kind of things, But
Speaker 1: that's really cool to have a machine that can do
Speaker 1: both those heavy things and something delicate like not obliterate
Speaker 1: a soccer ball when you hit it. Well, it also
Speaker 1: can move fast, right right, I mean that's the other thing,
Speaker 1: like if you think of exoskeletons. If you think of
Speaker 1: something like the loader from Aliens, you imagine something that's
Speaker 1: moving super slow, right, it's taking these these kind of
Speaker 1: you know, anytime you think of a giant thing, it's
Speaker 1: moving at this really slow pace, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: lumbering like an elephant or something. But it turns out
Speaker 1: that this particular exoskeleton you can move pretty fast. And
Speaker 1: in fact, that's another thing that the pilot liked to
Speaker 1: show off. He would do jabs and even used a
Speaker 1: uh like the speed punching bag and show off that
Speaker 1: you could move really quickly just as you know, essentially
Speaker 1: just as quickly as you could without the suit on
Speaker 1: a little bit, but you could still move a lot
Speaker 1: faster than you would imagine wearing something like this, and
Speaker 1: that in part goes to show how advanced the computer
Speaker 1: systems are, because they would actually study the kinetics of
Speaker 1: all the human movements to make sure that the suit
Speaker 1: could keep up and keep pace so that you're not
Speaker 1: like limited to the super slow kind of approach right right. Um.
Speaker 1: As of as of its released back in the company
Speaker 1: was working on decreasing the power needed for for the
Speaker 1: suit by making these really efficient serves UM so that
Speaker 1: it could use a combustion engine instead of hydraulics, which
Speaker 1: would make everything UM so much lighter and cheaper and
Speaker 1: you wouldn't necessarily have to be tethered to something. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The next one is UM. Well it's not iron Man based,
Speaker 1: it's hulk based. Okay, so it got gamma mutated. Yes,
Speaker 1: it was. It was actually working on an experiment. Was No,
Speaker 1: it's not the nothing incredible hulk that's spelled that way.
Speaker 1: It's h u l C. Yeah, the Human Universal Load
Speaker 1: Carrier and Lockeed Martin is the company that has designed this,
Speaker 1: which was yet another military exoskeleton and UM. This one
Speaker 1: is supposed to allow soldiers to carry around two hundred
Speaker 1: pounds or for up to twelve miles or twenty kilometers
Speaker 1: on a single battery charge, meaning that you would be
Speaker 1: able to carry this two pound pack and uh, and
Speaker 1: it wouldn't you wouldn't feel all that weight on you.
Speaker 1: It's another hydraulic system, but it's untethered and it's a titan.
Speaker 1: It's made of titanium and also modular and design, which
Speaker 1: is really important if you're in the military and you
Speaker 1: have a failure of any part of your suit and
Speaker 1: you need to switch it out. If it's modular, then
Speaker 1: that means that you have a much greater capability of
Speaker 1: doing that on the fly. You might need not have to,
Speaker 1: you know, dismantle the entire suit in order to fix it. Now,
Speaker 1: you would require that you carry spare parts obviously, so
Speaker 1: that might be something that's in that two hundred pound
Speaker 1: packet carrying. UM. If it turns out that the whole
Speaker 1: suit weighs two hundred pounds and all the spare parts
Speaker 1: way two hundred pounds, then I guess it would mean
Speaker 1: that you're just carrying another suit. But yeah, you might
Speaker 1: as well carry a second hulk. Yeah, why not? That
Speaker 1: would be incredible. Um this one I I found that
Speaker 1: they've done a lot of testing about the wearer's metabolic
Speaker 1: rate through through their oxygen consumption, which was pretty fascinating.
Speaker 1: They found that wearers oxygen used decreased by about five
Speaker 1: to twelve percent, and that's without a load. With with
Speaker 1: a load it got with an eighty one pound load
Speaker 1: to be very specific, UM it got even better. The
Speaker 1: the oxygen use decreased by by on average, so UM,
Speaker 1: which basically just means that it is effective at decreasing
Speaker 1: exhaustion over a period of time. Right, So essentially you
Speaker 1: could say, like, this person is not breathing as hard
Speaker 1: as they would if they in fact had an unassisted load,
Speaker 1: like they were just carrying it all on their own. Interesting. Uh,
Speaker 1: And then we get into this is actually my favorite
Speaker 1: use of exo skeletons because I find it the most inspiring.
Speaker 1: I also think it's the most likely to occur within
Speaker 1: the next say, five to ten years. Yeah, that we're
Speaker 1: talking about medical exo skeletons. Exoskeletons that are meant to
Speaker 1: help UH patients and therapists together to be able to
Speaker 1: treat lots of different issues. So one of the one
Speaker 1: ones I want to talk about is LOPES, which stands
Speaker 1: for lower extremity Powered exoskeleton. And if you're thinking, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, those words don't make the word lopes. They
Speaker 1: get a little creative with the capitalization that. But it's
Speaker 1: meant to help stroke survivors train themselves how to walk.
Speaker 1: So people have suffered a stroke and have mobility issues
Speaker 1: as a result of that often have to go through
Speaker 1: a really long period of physical therapy just to regain
Speaker 1: some portion of that mobility. And the idea is that
Speaker 1: this particular powered exoskeleton would would aid a stroke victim
Speaker 1: in making those steps to retrain themselves so that eventually
Speaker 1: they be able to have those mobility that mobility regained
Speaker 1: without the use of the exoskeleton. So the goal of
Speaker 1: this one is that eventually the patient no longer needs it. Um.
Speaker 1: It's also, as the project points out, beneficial to therapists
Speaker 1: who often need to jump in and help people and phone. Yeah, like,
Speaker 1: the patient may suddenly, uh start to to fade and
Speaker 1: need physical assistance right then and there, and the therapist
Speaker 1: has to come in and end up taking on that
Speaker 1: weight to safely lower the patient or get the patients
Speaker 1: somewhere where you know that's they're no longer in danger
Speaker 1: of getting hurt as a result of falling down. So
Speaker 1: this can contribute to the therapist becoming exhausted or injured
Speaker 1: in some way. So the idea is that with this
Speaker 1: particular kind of exo skeleton, the patient, all that weight
Speaker 1: gets taken on by the exo skeleton, not the therapist,
Speaker 1: so it could in theory help both the medical practitioner
Speaker 1: and the patient, which I thought was really an interesting
Speaker 1: way of looking at it. This is a project that
Speaker 1: is constantly looking at bringing new people on to kind
Speaker 1: of develop the program further, and it's very similar to
Speaker 1: some of the other ones we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1: For example, Argo Medical Technologies came up with Rewalk, which
Speaker 1: is their name for their medical exo skeleton. Um Argo
Speaker 1: Medical Technologies was founded by Dr Amitt Goffer, who in
Speaker 1: fact is a quadriplegic and wanted to develop up an
Speaker 1: exoskeleton that would allow paraplegics to regain the ability to walk.
Speaker 1: So this is for people who have suffered spinal injuries
Speaker 1: and other injuries that would prevent them from being able
Speaker 1: to use their lower extremities. So it's against an exo
Speaker 1: skeleton that's going to support their weight. Uh. They generally
Speaker 1: are using crutches along with us to maintain balance because
Speaker 1: there's only so much that these can do right now.
Speaker 1: I assume that maybe in the future will get to
Speaker 1: a point where, because of advanced gyroscopes, we may even
Speaker 1: see a time where where most people won't even need
Speaker 1: the use of crutches. That's not the case right now, um.
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously that would require incredible finesse on the
Speaker 1: part of the mechanics. Right some of some of the
Speaker 1: projects that have been coming out of Honda's development labs
Speaker 1: have been kind of sort of working towards something like that, right,
Speaker 1: but and and some of the one of the other
Speaker 1: ones will talk about kind of is leaning towards that
Speaker 1: direction too. So this EXO skeleton is already in service
Speaker 1: right now, mostly in Europe. There are a few places
Speaker 1: that use in the United States, but technically it's awaiting
Speaker 1: FDA approval for a widespread rollout. But it's even just
Speaker 1: to test stuff like that, you actually have to have
Speaker 1: really extensive checks and balances and regulations in place exactly,
Speaker 1: and they're having to write these regulations on the fly.
Speaker 1: I think that Europe has is a little bit ahead
Speaker 1: of the curve um versus the United States. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: anytime you're talking about anything that has a medical claim,
Speaker 1: the f d A has oversight of that and you
Speaker 1: have to meet the FDA's criteria before you can start
Speaker 1: to market something. So in this case, this one is
Speaker 1: being used for physical therapy as well as allowing people
Speaker 1: who otherwise would not be able to get up and
Speaker 1: walk around to actually do that. And it's pretty incredible stuff. Uh.
Speaker 1: There is now a new device called the rewalk Personal
Speaker 1: relatively new. In two thousand twelve they launched it. So
Speaker 1: the rewalk Personal is meant to be a day to
Speaker 1: day device, So that would be something that paraplegics could use. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they could actually have that along with a wheelchair.
Speaker 1: So most of the devices were talking about there in
Speaker 1: a testing phase where it's just in a research facility.
Speaker 1: Maybe they partner with the hospital and they get um
Speaker 1: a volunteer, perhaps a paraplegic to volunteer and test these out.
Speaker 1: But this is one where someone could actually get one
Speaker 1: of these devices for themselves. And then we've got the
Speaker 1: vendor built powered exoskeleton, which is kind of similar. This
Speaker 1: one comes from the Center for Intelligent Mechatronics, which is
Speaker 1: probably the coolest center name I have ever seen. So
Speaker 1: it's another lower body powered exoskeleton designed to help people
Speaker 1: who have suffered spinal injuries be able to walk around again.
Speaker 1: And it weighs twenty seven pounds which is about twelve
Speaker 1: kilograms and has been tested on people that way up
Speaker 1: to two pounds or uh. These controls are actually very
Speaker 1: similar to the way the segue is controlled. You know,
Speaker 1: if you're on a have you guys ever written a segue.
Speaker 1: I've never been on one, but I've read about how
Speaker 1: they were. Okay, I've I have written on a segue.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that video is not online because um, there
Speaker 1: is a learning current, believe it or not. And I
Speaker 1: did not fall off. Um. I very nearly veered well
Speaker 1: outside of the segue driving range into heavy foot traffic.
Speaker 1: This was a Disney World where heavy foot traffic is
Speaker 1: part and parcel. R Jonathan, did you kill someone? The
Speaker 1: tears ran freely that day on Disney World. No, I
Speaker 1: didn't hit anybody, but I did. I did definitely have
Speaker 1: a few moments where I was afraid I was about
Speaker 1: to veer well outside of the area. I was good,
Speaker 1: but it was comical to watch anyway. The point is,
Speaker 1: the way you you drive these things is by leaning right.
Speaker 1: The ideas that you you lean forward as if you
Speaker 1: were going to take a step, and then that that's
Speaker 1: how the segway knows to move forward, and then if
Speaker 1: you start to lean back, it will be a breaking
Speaker 1: my mechanism. Very similar set of controls are on the
Speaker 1: Vanderbilt Power Exo skeleton, where leaning is what gives the
Speaker 1: the Exo skeleton the information that all right, this is
Speaker 1: what I need to do. So for example, if you're
Speaker 1: in a seated position and you lean forward, that tells
Speaker 1: the exo skeleton that you want to extend the legs
Speaker 1: and stand up. So a paraplegic with crutches for balance
Speaker 1: could lean forward and that would then tell the exo
Speaker 1: skeleton to extend and then the paraplegic standing up, and
Speaker 1: then the paraplegic can lean forward and start to walk forward,
Speaker 1: and if they want to slow down, they start leaning back.
Speaker 1: So it's a really kind of cool example. It's very
Speaker 1: similar to that, and one that was on display at
Speaker 1: c E S two thousand and fourteen. I did not
Speaker 1: attend the particular press event where this was shown off,
Speaker 1: but I got to see video later and I'm so
Speaker 1: upset that I wasn't there. But the XO U e
Speaker 1: K S O U XO, sometimes called the e Legs I,
Speaker 1: was shown off at two thousand fourteen, another lower body
Speaker 1: exo skeleton designed to give paraplegics more freedom, more more
Speaker 1: options when it comes to moving around their environments. So
Speaker 1: the version they showed at c E S, there was
Speaker 1: a guy in it who was using crutches and the
Speaker 1: controls for the exo skeleton. We're in the crutches themselves,
Speaker 1: so he could control when the exo skeleton would take
Speaker 1: a step. Yeah, so it actually has three different phases
Speaker 1: in this. The first phase is that you have a
Speaker 1: medical practitioner who actually initiates when each step is taken,
Speaker 1: so in other words, a second person is there and
Speaker 1: will work with the patient to learn how to use
Speaker 1: this device. The second step is when you get the
Speaker 1: crutches that have the controls built into them, so the
Speaker 1: patient has the complete control of the device itself. The
Speaker 1: third step is where it's very much like the Vendorbilt
Speaker 1: powered Exo skeleton in that again, by leaning you give
Speaker 1: the commands. So now the commands are built directly into
Speaker 1: and these are different mode that you can put the
Speaker 1: exo skeleton into, but you can engage this mode and
Speaker 1: then the commands are all on the shifting of weight,
Speaker 1: and so you would no longer be activating it through
Speaker 1: the crutches. You would do it by leaning and that
Speaker 1: would tell the exo skeleton which way to move. And
Speaker 1: it actually has a secondary phase within that that gives
Speaker 1: it even more subtle control. It's pretty cool stuff. So
Speaker 1: all of these obviously are meant to give some uh
Speaker 1: some more options for physical therapy and just mobility for
Speaker 1: people who obviously otherwise would have very limited options. Um And,
Speaker 1: like I said, the video from CS two thousand fourteen, Now,
Speaker 1: this this featured a guy who's been working with them
Speaker 1: for more than two years, a paraplegic who's been working
Speaker 1: with him for more than two years. But showing him
Speaker 1: walking around on stage, you could hear gasps in the audience.
Speaker 1: Because this is a technology that while it's been around
Speaker 1: for a while, you know, outside of a few reports,
Speaker 1: not a whole lot of people know about it, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I've seen a couple of news reports where it's almost
Speaker 1: treated as you know, uh, here's that last interesting thing
Speaker 1: before they go to the next program. And meanwhile, I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: this is so amazing and it's a whole half hour.
Speaker 1: This is not the really big bunny from down the street.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to know how this works.
Speaker 1: I want to know how it's transforming lives. I want
Speaker 1: to know what the future applications are. I want to
Speaker 1: know how, ultimately something like this could give a person
Speaker 1: who otherwise would feel like they had lost all of
Speaker 1: that capability to get it back. I mean to me,
Speaker 1: that's like an amazing story and really really uplifting. And
Speaker 1: and you know, of course, these exoskeletons, they're getting better
Speaker 1: and better each generation. They're finding better ways to to
Speaker 1: maximize efficiency, to create more intuitive control systems. So my
Speaker 1: hope is that we see even better versions of this
Speaker 1: down the line, and that we start seeing them used
Speaker 1: in the other applications we've talked about, where you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's more than just a proof of concept, it's
Speaker 1: an actual thing that people are using that is increasing
Speaker 1: our capabilities. Yeah. Yeah, letting a firefighter rescue people better,
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. Yeah, and letting letting me join up
Speaker 1: with my buddies to form Vultron. I just have tiny demands. Alright, So, uh,
Speaker 1: anything else on exo skeletons you guys want to talk about.
Speaker 1: I think that the possibility of you getting utterly crushed
Speaker 1: inside of a Vultron esque machine is pretty high. I
Speaker 1: thought you were gonna say, like, it's enough for me.
Speaker 1: I thought you were gonna just say I thought she
Speaker 1: was just gonna say is really funny. So I, Joe
Speaker 1: and I are on the same page here, alright. So, guys,
Speaker 1: that wraps this up. Remember go to f W thinking
Speaker 1: dot com. That's where we have the podcast, blog post, videos,
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Speaker 1: forward to hearing from you and we will talk to
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