Speaker 1: Welcome to text Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech, and you guys probably
Speaker 1: know that beyond tech, I also love science fiction. I
Speaker 1: grew up reading books and watching movies and TV shows.
Speaker 1: They're all in the science fiction genre, and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of futuristic technologies in those works that I
Speaker 1: find really compelling, from faster than light space travel, which
Speaker 1: I suspect will never be a reality, to flying cars,
Speaker 1: to a replicator that can make lasagna whenever I want it.
Speaker 1: Somebody invent that. But today I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: one of those technologies that we're actually seeing evolve in
Speaker 1: the real world, and that would be exoskeletons. Now, because
Speaker 1: of my age, when I think exo skeletons, I think
Speaker 1: of Ripley in the film Aliens, the second of the movies.
Speaker 1: She's in that giant cargo loader exo skeleton going toe
Speaker 1: to toe with the alien queen. But there are tons
Speaker 1: of other examples in science fiction, ranging from the industrial
Speaker 1: to more streamlined versions like Iron Man's suit. And we
Speaker 1: are not anywhere close to being able to build a
Speaker 1: suit like Tony Starks, but we do have some pretty
Speaker 1: cool robotic exo skeletons out there. Some are intended to
Speaker 1: help people move heavy objects, kind of like the cargo
Speaker 1: loader from Aliens. Some are intended to provide support to
Speaker 1: give people with mobility issues more independence, Some are meant
Speaker 1: for people in the military to help them walk for
Speaker 1: further distances and carry heavier loads, and some are meant
Speaker 1: to encourage empathy and understanding in others. So today we're
Speaker 1: gonna look at the development of exoskeletons and their uses.
Speaker 1: One thing I want to talk about right at the
Speaker 1: start is how developing exoskeletons is truly a multidisciplinary pursuit,
Speaker 1: And what I mean by that is that it requires
Speaker 1: the expertise of people in very different fields of study.
Speaker 1: One obvious one is robotics. Exoskeletons share a lot of
Speaker 1: common traits with robots, and robotic elements frequently are part
Speaker 1: of powered exoskeletons. But here's the thing about robots. Their
Speaker 1: form doesn't have the limitation of the human form. Robots
Speaker 1: come in all shapes and sizes, Some aren't mobile at
Speaker 1: all the ones that do move may move in very
Speaker 1: different ways from the way we move. There are swimming robots,
Speaker 1: climbing robots, four legged robots, wheeled robots, robots with treads.
Speaker 1: An engineer who wants to build a robot has a
Speaker 1: lot of options and will likely choose whichever one's best
Speaker 1: suit the purpose of that robot. But we humans have
Speaker 1: way more limitations. Our limbs only work certain ways, and
Speaker 1: if you try to make them work outside of those
Speaker 1: certain ways, well you might get some unpleasant crunching and breaking.
Speaker 1: And I have to admit, one of the nightmarish visions
Speaker 1: I have of an exoskeleton is one that begins to
Speaker 1: bend the opposite way of a human joint and just
Speaker 1: you know, keeps going, which is yikes. So my point
Speaker 1: is that when designing exoskeletons, it is important to have
Speaker 1: people with expertise on the physiology of human beings as
Speaker 1: part of the team to make sure that the exoskeleton
Speaker 1: works with, not against, the person wearing it. Add to
Speaker 1: that the fact that we human beings are you know,
Speaker 1: a little squishy, you know what. Admittedly, ever since I
Speaker 1: stopped going to the gem, I've become way more squishy
Speaker 1: and mechanical systems typically are very much not squishy, and
Speaker 1: sometimes pairing those things together results in bad stuff like
Speaker 1: people getting hurt, and has given rise to a discipline
Speaker 1: sometimes called soft robotics, or systems that can interoperate with
Speaker 1: softer stuff like humans. So the development of an exoskeleton
Speaker 1: is an arduous process, and unless some of the people
Speaker 1: actually developing the technology are the ones who will ultimately
Speaker 1: use it, you also have the added challenge of making
Speaker 1: sure that the thing you're creating is actually useful for
Speaker 1: the intended audience or the intended consumer. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: I'm not the only person who, after I got my
Speaker 1: hands on a product, found myself frustrated because it wasn't
Speaker 1: working the way I thought it would work. It worked
Speaker 1: the way the designers thought it should, but they didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily take into account how the end user, who was
Speaker 1: not involved in the development or production of this technology,
Speaker 1: was going to try and actually use this thing. Look,
Speaker 1: I'm saying, sometimes I get stuff and it's not dummy proof,
Speaker 1: so I find myself wondering how the heck to get
Speaker 1: it to work. And yeah, I'm being a bit glib,
Speaker 1: but it really can be an issue. Designers can sometimes
Speaker 1: make something that doesn't really work for anyone because the
Speaker 1: designers got sidetracked solving one or more technical problems and
Speaker 1: didn't create something that is actually helpful. Now, that last
Speaker 1: point applies to any product really, not just exoskeletons. However,
Speaker 1: with exoskeletons you can see how it is particularly important.
Speaker 1: Designing and building even a prototype is incredibly labor intensive
Speaker 1: and thus expensive. It requires a lot of time and research,
Speaker 1: and that is an investment, so you kind of want
Speaker 1: to make sure the end result is something worthwhile, even
Speaker 1: if it's not going to become a commercial product in
Speaker 1: the future. You want to make sure that what you're
Speaker 1: doing actually matters. And you can also think of exoskeletons
Speaker 1: as falling into one of three broad categories. There's actually
Speaker 1: a couple different ways we can classify exo skeletons, but
Speaker 1: one way is to look at what they are intended
Speaker 1: to do. Are they upper extremity exo skeletons meaning stuff
Speaker 1: that helps with moving heavy weights using your arms and
Speaker 1: your your torso. Are they lower extremity exo skeletons something
Speaker 1: that helps, you know, carry weight with the legs or
Speaker 1: the hips, or maybe helps correct some sort of physiological issue,
Speaker 1: or are they full body exoskeletons, you know, essentially shoulder
Speaker 1: to toe typically is what we're talking about with these things,
Speaker 1: and it's hard to pin down the earliest appearance of
Speaker 1: the idea for a powered exoskeleton, but one early example
Speaker 1: in fiction comes from Robert Heinlein's novel Starship Troopers, in
Speaker 1: which human soldiers of the future are wearing power suits
Speaker 1: that enhance the soldiers strength and speed and other capabilities.
Speaker 1: Some might argue this is more an empowered armor category
Speaker 1: and not exo skeleton, but I maintain those distinctions are
Speaker 1: kind of meaningless in the real world, or at least
Speaker 1: outside the world of fiction. The earliest example I could
Speaker 1: find dates from a nineteen sixty one article in the
Speaker 1: journal Armor, published by the United States Army. It's a
Speaker 1: write up in an news section, so it's sort of
Speaker 1: a series of headlines and not a full like feature
Speaker 1: in the magazine itself, and this particular little story has
Speaker 1: the headline future soldier human tank charming right. The opening
Speaker 1: sentence reads quote the soldier of the distant future will
Speaker 1: be a human tank equipped with power steering and power brakes.
Speaker 1: The Pentagon said recently end quote golly. The project was
Speaker 1: also called Servo Soldier according to this news piece, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't announcing a new invention. It was rather talking
Speaker 1: about how the Pentagon and the Department of Defense were
Speaker 1: soliciting inventors for ideas that could contribute to this goal
Speaker 1: of creating a servo soldier. The suit was going to
Speaker 1: have a pretty amazing wish list of features, so enhanced
Speaker 1: strength check, enhanced speed check, enhanced resistance to stuff like heat, cold,
Speaker 1: toxic gas, and than radiation check. The military experts acknowledge
Speaker 1: that there were one or two minor obstacles to overcome,
Speaker 1: like creating a way for the suit to interpret the
Speaker 1: moves of the soldier as commands, thus generating an output
Speaker 1: several times the strength of the original motion, like if
Speaker 1: you were to throw a punch, the punch would be
Speaker 1: way more powerful, for example. And finding a quiet, portable
Speaker 1: power source capable of generating at least four horsepower was
Speaker 1: another challenge that they admitted to. And the name gives
Speaker 1: me a chance to explain just what a servo is.
Speaker 1: It's not just the surname of a plucky robot who
Speaker 1: riffs on bad movies Shout Out to Tom's servo. Servo
Speaker 1: is short for servo mechanism. The servo mechanism for an
Speaker 1: exo skeleton like the one the army was proposing, would
Speaker 1: be sort of like our muscles. They would connect linked
Speaker 1: parts of the exoskeleton and provide the motive power so
Speaker 1: that they could move or really to augment the movements
Speaker 1: of who whoever is wearing the exoskeleton. So servos often
Speaker 1: find their way into what is called closed loop applications.
Speaker 1: A closed loop system is one in which there is
Speaker 1: a process that has an outcome and the state of
Speaker 1: that outcome then comes back to affect the process. So
Speaker 1: one example of this is a clothes dryer with a
Speaker 1: dryness sensor. So you throw some wet clothes into the
Speaker 1: dryer and you set the dryer to to dry. The
Speaker 1: dryer tosses your unmentionables around while blowing hot air to
Speaker 1: dry them out, and a sensor stays on the lookout
Speaker 1: for signs of moisture. And so as the cycle is
Speaker 1: coming towards an end, the sensor is detecting if there's
Speaker 1: any moisture present, and if it does pick up that
Speaker 1: there's moisture, there the clothes are not really dry. It
Speaker 1: then feeds back into the system, and thus the dryer
Speaker 1: just keeps going for a while longer. If the sensor
Speaker 1: does not detect moisture, then it says, okay, it's good
Speaker 1: for us to stop now, and the whole process stops.
Speaker 1: This is a closed loop because it relies on that
Speaker 1: feedback signal. So a servo motor, at its heart is
Speaker 1: a device that rotates parts of a machine precisely and efficiently,
Speaker 1: so that rotation might be translated into a different type
Speaker 1: of motion, usually through gears of some sort, so that
Speaker 1: you have an element inside the servo that's rotating, but
Speaker 1: the part that you might see might be uh a
Speaker 1: platform that raises and lowers. But it can do so
Speaker 1: at a very precise distance and a precise speed, and
Speaker 1: that's it, which is pretty simple, right. They're able to
Speaker 1: move at varying velocities and two different positions. But that
Speaker 1: differentiates servos from other types of motors. Servo motors have
Speaker 1: some form of sensor that measures the position of the
Speaker 1: motors moving components, and the controller that dictates how and
Speaker 1: when and how far and how fast the servocean move.
Speaker 1: So imagine a robot arm with a joint like an elbow,
Speaker 1: and imagine it has the same range of motion as
Speaker 1: a typical human elbow. The servo motor would provide the
Speaker 1: force to extend the arm or to bend it back,
Speaker 1: and the sensor would detect precisely where in the range
Speaker 1: of motion the arm was at any given time, and
Speaker 1: the controller would be the element providing the instructions on
Speaker 1: what should be happening at any given moment. Now, there's
Speaker 1: a lot more to be said about servo motors, but
Speaker 1: I'll have to dedicate a full episode to explain them
Speaker 1: in greater detail. For our purposes, it's good to know
Speaker 1: that it's an electro mechanical element that acts like a muscle,
Speaker 1: largely in robotics. Uh not, that's not the only application
Speaker 1: we find servo motors in all sorts of stuff, but
Speaker 1: in robots in particular, it is an incredibly important component.
Speaker 1: Uh It is not the only mechanism in robotics that
Speaker 1: does this, and I'm sure I'm going to touch on
Speaker 1: several others in this episode. Now, I do not know
Speaker 1: how long the servo Soldier project lasted, or whether it
Speaker 1: ever got beyond the initial stage of just soliciting design submissions,
Speaker 1: but I do know the piece and armor came out
Speaker 1: a full two years before the first appearance of the
Speaker 1: comic book character Iron Man, and there were other attempts
Speaker 1: at creating exoskeleton technology as far back as the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 1: A project involving the U. S. Army, the U. S. Navy,
Speaker 1: and General Electric or GE produced a prototype exoskeleton dubbed
Speaker 1: Hardyman h A R D I M A N. The
Speaker 1: goal for this project was to design a wearable exoskeleton
Speaker 1: that would give the operator a lifting amplification to a
Speaker 1: factor of twenty five. Now, that would mean you could
Speaker 1: lift a payload of one thousand, two hundred fifty pounds
Speaker 1: and it would feel like you were picking up a
Speaker 1: fifty pound weight. In kilograms, that would be a mass
Speaker 1: of around five hundred sixty seven kilograms, but it would
Speaker 1: feel like a mass of twenty two points seven kilograms.
Speaker 1: That is amazing, and it goes right in line with
Speaker 1: that cargo load I mentioned from the film Aliens. In fact,
Speaker 1: if you look at images of this thing, it kind
Speaker 1: of resembles that fictional piece of hardware. So I imagined
Speaker 1: that when James Cameron was thinking about the film that
Speaker 1: the hardy Man design was one of the influences for
Speaker 1: the cargo loader in that film. The hearty Man was
Speaker 1: technically two systems that were connected together. First, you had
Speaker 1: the pieces that connected to the operator. This is an
Speaker 1: internal exoskeleton, internal with perspective to the device, not to
Speaker 1: the operator. No one needed to have surgery performed in
Speaker 1: order to have this put on them, thank goodness. No,
Speaker 1: this was a skeletal framework that had more than twenty
Speaker 1: five different joints. In fact, I found two separate web pages,
Speaker 1: both on g s own website, that gave the numbers
Speaker 1: of twenty eight joints and thirty joints, so I'd say
Speaker 1: somewhere in that range as a safe bet. Then there
Speaker 1: was a very large mechanical system that connected to this framework.
Speaker 1: So the mechanical system did not connect directly to the operator.
Speaker 1: You had this separate skeletal system that connected to the
Speaker 1: mechanical system, and then the operator connected to the skeletal system.
Speaker 1: But the mechanical system was outfitted with hydraulic and electronic
Speaker 1: systems to provide the force needed to amplify the wearer's strength.
Speaker 1: According to some fairly sketchy records. The design team was
Speaker 1: able to create some form of feedback system, which is
Speaker 1: a really important part of this equation and one that
Speaker 1: really needs to extend all the way back to the
Speaker 1: human operator. So in other words, imagine that you're wearing
Speaker 1: a suit, but there's no feedback, Like you can't tell
Speaker 1: the difference between pushing lightly and pushing really hard, So
Speaker 1: you wouldn't know if you were using enough pressure to
Speaker 1: pick up a heavy load, or maybe you might use
Speaker 1: too much then you damage whatever it is you're trying
Speaker 1: to pick up. So in one case, you might try
Speaker 1: to lift something but because of the pressure you're using
Speaker 1: with your hands, the grip isn't strong enough and that's
Speaker 1: something slips from your grasp, which could be potentially very dangerous,
Speaker 1: or you're using way too much pressure and you actually
Speaker 1: cause damage to the thing you're trying to move. Exoskeletons
Speaker 1: need a way to indicate to the operator what the
Speaker 1: interactions with the environment are actually like, there needs to
Speaker 1: be some form of feedback, whether it's audible, visual, or tactile.
Speaker 1: If it's a haptic feedback system, maybe a rumble system,
Speaker 1: so that way you can tell how much pressure you're
Speaker 1: using and the rumble increases in amplitude as you start
Speaker 1: to add more pressure. Something needs to be there in
Speaker 1: order for the operator to have a sense of how
Speaker 1: much force they are using. And while the scant records
Speaker 1: on the Hearty Man suggested that the team found some
Speaker 1: solutions to this problem, they also don't go into any detail,
Speaker 1: so if they did find solutions to it, I don't
Speaker 1: know what those were. The Hearty Man never progressed beyond
Speaker 1: the prototype stage and reportedly it never had anyone inside
Speaker 1: it while it was actually turned on, not not the
Speaker 1: full suit. Maybe parts of it, but not the full thing.
Speaker 1: There are photos of people in the suit, presumably the
Speaker 1: suit was off at the time those photos were taken.
Speaker 1: But the question is what went wrong? Why didn't this
Speaker 1: thing get further refined and go into production. Well, for
Speaker 1: one thing, the suit was just impractical. The suit itself
Speaker 1: weighed in at a hefty one thousand, five hundred pounds
Speaker 1: that's about six ms. Providing power to it was a challenge.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing it required a tethered power line at the time,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't exactly the most stable of suits. According
Speaker 1: to reports, they had this tiny issue of quote violent
Speaker 1: and uncontrollable motion in the quote, which, as you can imagine,
Speaker 1: is not the best feature if you're putting someone in
Speaker 1: the darn thing. And so it never went further than
Speaker 1: the prototype stage. When we come back, I'll give a
Speaker 1: word or two about hydraulics systems, and then we'll continue
Speaker 1: looking at exoskeleton projects. But first let's take a quick break. Okay,
Speaker 1: before the break I mentioned, I would talk about hydraulic
Speaker 1: systems and why they are used in heavy duty, industrial
Speaker 1: strength machinery. And this has a lot to do with physics,
Speaker 1: particularly the physics of specific types of liquids. Now, basically,
Speaker 1: hydraulic systems are using some form of pressurized fluid to
Speaker 1: do work. So imagine you've got a pair of syringes
Speaker 1: and the first syringe is filled with a liquid and
Speaker 1: it's connected by a tube which is also filled with liquid.
Speaker 1: There's no gaps there, and this is connected to an
Speaker 1: empty syringe. But this second syringe has its plunger fully depressed,
Speaker 1: so there's nowhere in the system. Right, You've got a
Speaker 1: fully filled syringe with liquid in it plunger fully back.
Speaker 1: You've got a tube filled with liquid connected to the
Speaker 1: end of a second syringe. With its plunger fully depressed.
Speaker 1: If you push on the full syringe is plunger, then
Speaker 1: the plunger pushes against the liquid, and the liquid in
Speaker 1: turn pushes against the plunger on the empty syringe, and
Speaker 1: it pushes that plunger outward as the first syringe empties.
Speaker 1: So fluids like water don't compress very much, so when
Speaker 1: you push on them, they transfer that force in whatever
Speaker 1: direction happens to be available. In fact, they press outward
Speaker 1: in every direction without diminishing the force. But if the
Speaker 1: fluid hits an unyielding edge, then the pressure will act
Speaker 1: against that space at a right angle. This is called
Speaker 1: Pascal's law after Blaze Pascal. And practically what this means
Speaker 1: is you can apply force to a small amount of
Speaker 1: liquid and get a lot of power as an output
Speaker 1: as you get a proportionally bigger force on a bigger area.
Speaker 1: And in the example I just mentioned, you can easily
Speaker 1: imagine reversing this process simply by picking up syringe number
Speaker 1: two that is now full and pushing down on its plunger,
Speaker 1: forcing the pressurized liquid to push back against the plunger
Speaker 1: of syringe number one. And there are several parts to
Speaker 1: a typical hydraulic system, but that's not super important for
Speaker 1: this episode. I've done a few episodes talking about hydraulic
Speaker 1: systems and greater detail in the past, but the important
Speaker 1: things to remember about hydraulic systems is that they can
Speaker 1: generate a lot of power output, they can do very
Speaker 1: heavy duty work with a relatively small amount of input required,
Speaker 1: and hydraulic machines can lift heavy payloads, so they are
Speaker 1: often part of heavy duty industrial equipment. We're talking about
Speaker 1: stuff like construction machines, you know, cranes and bulldozers and
Speaker 1: back hose and that kind of thing, and they are
Speaker 1: part of heavy duty exoskeletons as a result as well.
Speaker 1: And I should also mention the difference between hydraulic and
Speaker 1: pneumatic systems. Hydraulics rely on pressurized liquids, and again, those
Speaker 1: don't compress. Pneumatic systems are kind of similar, but they
Speaker 1: rely on pressurized gas and gas does compress. So hydraulic
Speaker 1: systems are better for those super heavy duty functions and
Speaker 1: they are incredibly precise, but they are also slower than
Speaker 1: pneumatic systems. Pneumatic systems are better for smaller applications that
Speaker 1: don't require as much force or precision, but they do
Speaker 1: require faster action. So there are two different technologies that
Speaker 1: work on similar principles, but you would want to choose
Speaker 1: one or the other based upon whatever application you had
Speaker 1: in mind. While ge produced a powered exoskeleton that was
Speaker 1: potentially too dangerous to put someone in when it was
Speaker 1: you know, actually on, a team at Cornell led by
Speaker 1: Neil Maisen was working on a different design called the
Speaker 1: man Amplifier, which yikes, anyway, that name seems pretty loaded
Speaker 1: to me. But the concept was similar to gas approach,
Speaker 1: although it was meant to be much smaller and it
Speaker 1: would also rely on hydraulics and servos and it would
Speaker 1: also amplify the operator's strength. The team designed the underlying exoskeleton,
Speaker 1: which was the part that would attach directly to the
Speaker 1: operator's body. This was the unpowered section. They never reached
Speaker 1: a point in which they were able to add powered
Speaker 1: components to it, but designing just the skeletal structure itself
Speaker 1: was a big deal because they had to figure out,
Speaker 1: how can we do something that would support weight, How
Speaker 1: can we do it so that it moves with the operator,
Speaker 1: and that it uh it interferes with the operator's range
Speaker 1: of movement as little as possible, and those are all
Speaker 1: conflicting priorities. There's no easy way to satisfy all of
Speaker 1: those requirements. Over in Europe, at the Mahilo Institute in Serbia,
Speaker 1: Professor Miomir Vukabanovich led efforts to develop a wearable system
Speaker 1: that would replicate the walking gait of a human, with
Speaker 1: the ultimate goal of providing assistance to people who had
Speaker 1: limited or no mobility in their legs. The work in
Speaker 1: that field would also advance our understanding of bipedal robotics
Speaker 1: systems in general, meaning that while the goal was to
Speaker 1: create an exoskeleton to give mobility to people who might
Speaker 1: otherwise not have that independence, it also contributed to our
Speaker 1: progress towards bipedal robots, you know, robots with two legs
Speaker 1: that are capable of maintaining their balance and also moving
Speaker 1: through environments. This is easier said than done. It's actually
Speaker 1: incredibly difficult to achieve. So the reason why this is
Speaker 1: such a hard challenge is that you've got to think
Speaker 1: about what walking actually is. You know, for a lot
Speaker 1: of people, walking is just something we can do without
Speaker 1: really thinking about it. You know, you just you just
Speaker 1: do it. But if you want to replicate walking, you
Speaker 1: have to figure out what walking really is from a
Speaker 1: physics perspective. You've got to figure out stuf off like
Speaker 1: momentum and balance. You have to marry a stable repeated
Speaker 1: phase that is moving the legs in a pattern that
Speaker 1: the works and creates a stable, you know system. But
Speaker 1: you also have to do that within the context of
Speaker 1: an unstable phase. And by that I mean Bipedal walking
Speaker 1: is essentially a series of shifting our balance forward so
Speaker 1: that we're falling. Walking is just falling and catching ourselves
Speaker 1: over and over by extending a foot and then we
Speaker 1: catch ourselves with that foot. We shift our weight and
Speaker 1: our balance so that we continue our fall forward, but
Speaker 1: we catch ourselves with our other foot. Now, this process
Speaker 1: is natural to us. It is easy for us to do,
Speaker 1: and we don't feel like we're falling, right, We're just
Speaker 1: pushing ourselves forward. But if you were to try and
Speaker 1: replicate that in a machine system, you literally are having
Speaker 1: to cause the machine to fall forward and then catch
Speaker 1: itself over it over again, And that requires you to
Speaker 1: figure out how to do things like maintain balance, how
Speaker 1: do you maintain speed, how do you allow for stopping,
Speaker 1: how do you allow for the change of direction. I mean,
Speaker 1: all of the acceleration forces are really tricky. And one
Speaker 1: concept that Vukabanovich put forth was what he called the
Speaker 1: zero moment point, and this describes a condition in which
Speaker 1: there is no horizontal movement or moment I should say,
Speaker 1: and the feet of whatever the bipedal devices are in
Speaker 1: contact with the ground, but there's no horizontal motion, and
Speaker 1: there's sufficient friction between the foot of the bipedal structure
Speaker 1: and the ground so that there's no slipping. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, this is the condition in which a bipedal
Speaker 1: structure is stable with regard to horizontal movement. It's it's
Speaker 1: standing still essentially. And again that sounds really simple, but
Speaker 1: it's it's actually pretty tricky to achieve, especially if you
Speaker 1: know you don't have full control of the environment. So
Speaker 1: if the ground is not perfectly level, for example, this
Speaker 1: is harder to do than it sounds. The early example
Speaker 1: from the Mahilo Institute was a pneumatically powered exo skeleton system.
Speaker 1: The institute would continue to pioneer work in robotics and
Speaker 1: robotic exo skeletons, and we would see continued interest in
Speaker 1: developing such devices to aid people with mobility issues. Over
Speaker 1: in the United States, researchers at the University of Wisconsin
Speaker 1: Madison developed a walking robot EXO skeleton that also aimed
Speaker 1: to help people with limited or no motor function in
Speaker 1: their legs so that they could walk. There's a video
Speaker 1: showing this and two other robot designs that's pretty fascinating,
Speaker 1: But the version of that video is pre programmed to
Speaker 1: carry out the same basic walking sequence, meaning it was
Speaker 1: a very early stage of a useful exo skeleton. It
Speaker 1: was either on or it was off, so you're either
Speaker 1: walking or you were not. Such a device would just
Speaker 1: allow someone to walk in a forward motion, but it
Speaker 1: would be incapable of doing other things like climbing the
Speaker 1: stairs or letting the operators sit down in a chair,
Speaker 1: or even changing direction. However, you've got to walk before
Speaker 1: you can lounge, as the old saying definitely doesn't go.
Speaker 1: But more seriously, researchers were having to get a deeper
Speaker 1: understanding of the nature of the challenge before developing solutions
Speaker 1: to address that challenge. And this is a typical part
Speaker 1: of engineering. You have to define what the problem is
Speaker 1: before you can create a workable solution. And we were
Speaker 1: still on the stages of defining the problem. The early
Speaker 1: work and exoskeletons was fascinating but also illustrated the limitations
Speaker 1: of the time, some of which still remained to this day.
Speaker 1: Computational resources in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies were
Speaker 1: scarce and mostly restricted to mainframe systems. Power sources were
Speaker 1: large and frequently immobile, or at least practically immobile, and
Speaker 1: a lot more research needed to be done to develop
Speaker 1: mechanical systems capable of replicating the motions that come naturally
Speaker 1: to the typical human. Now that's not to say that
Speaker 1: there weren't other examples of exoskeletons in the following years,
Speaker 1: but really we started seeing some major advances a couple
Speaker 1: of decades later. So we're gonna skip ahead. Just know
Speaker 1: that there was a ton of work in this space
Speaker 1: that I'm skipping over. But otherwise we would have, you know,
Speaker 1: a twenty episode long series here. So countless engineers, scientists, inventors,
Speaker 1: doctors and more added to our understanding and our capabilities
Speaker 1: in robotics. And that's what would make the exo skeletons
Speaker 1: I'll talk about next a real possibility Without their work,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have anything to say in this next section.
Speaker 1: So so in the late nineteen eighties, the Institute of
Speaker 1: Electrical and Electronics Engineers or I E E E or
Speaker 1: I Triple E, or as I like to say, I
Speaker 1: he created the first International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics. To
Speaker 1: be clear, powered exoskeletons are just one manifestation of the
Speaker 1: concept of rehabilitation robotics, which aims to quote propose cutting
Speaker 1: edge solutions to boost the rehabilitation process, providing robotic assistance
Speaker 1: to address and speed motor recovery, trying to unveil the
Speaker 1: mechanisms underlying brain plasticity end quote. So we saw a
Speaker 1: lot of conversions at this time in various fields that
Speaker 1: aim to leverage robotics with regard to medical and physical
Speaker 1: therapy applications, including advances in robotic prosthetics. So again, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of work going on that would the advances
Speaker 1: in different approaches slowly make their way into other applications. So,
Speaker 1: rather than attempt to go through a timeline bit by bit,
Speaker 1: I figure it would be best to talk about some
Speaker 1: of the other exo skeletons that emerged over the last
Speaker 1: twenty years. In two thousand one, a company called Hocoma
Speaker 1: introduced a technology meant help patients undergoing physical therapy in
Speaker 1: gate training. In other words, learning to walk in a
Speaker 1: way that's safe and efficient that you know, allows a
Speaker 1: patient to maintain balance and not exhaust the person. So
Speaker 1: patients who had experienced a neurological event like a stroke
Speaker 1: can use this technology to train themselves to walk again
Speaker 1: to maintain balance. The technology is called Loco matt l
Speaker 1: O k O m A T and it includes a
Speaker 1: treadmill and a special exoskeleton harness apparatus that assists patients
Speaker 1: in regaining the ability to walk. There are videos online
Speaker 1: showing it in use and it is incredibly remarkable. This
Speaker 1: particular technology is meant to help people regain the ability
Speaker 1: to walk. It's not an example of an exoskeleton one
Speaker 1: might use outside of physical therapy because it is dependent
Speaker 1: upon the harness and treadmill, So this is not something
Speaker 1: that someone would get fitted for and then use in
Speaker 1: their daily life. This would be something that someone would
Speaker 1: use whenever they would come in for physical therapy. Another
Speaker 1: example of a technology designed to help people recover and
Speaker 1: gate train is the TIBI on bionic leg This device
Speaker 1: evolved from an earlier model that was a powered knee orthosis.
Speaker 1: An Orthosis is a brace or other device that provides
Speaker 1: support to joints that helps correct some disorder of a
Speaker 1: limb or provides strength where you've lost some strength in
Speaker 1: that joint. The original device was really meant to help
Speaker 1: patients recovering from knee surgery so that they could build
Speaker 1: their strength back up during physical therapy. But after receiving
Speaker 1: some feedback that the device might be able to help
Speaker 1: people who had had a stroke, for example, trained to
Speaker 1: walk again, the company went to the drawing board created
Speaker 1: a more advanced version. This would be the bionic Leg,
Speaker 1: and it's like a mechanized brace for one leg. It
Speaker 1: includes a pressure sensor that the patient wears in their shoe,
Speaker 1: and a computer accepts input from physical therapists so that
Speaker 1: the therapist and the patient can fine tune how much
Speaker 1: weight the device will support, and the sensors that keep
Speaker 1: track of the legs position and orientation will allow the
Speaker 1: machine and the patient to work together. And it's also
Speaker 1: a pretty nifty application of this technology. There are lots
Speaker 1: of other examples of exo skeleton technologies that have been
Speaker 1: used in medical applications. Here in the United States, the FDA,
Speaker 1: that's the Food and Drug Administration, has approved three different
Speaker 1: exoskeletons as often. I couldn't find more recent records of this,
Speaker 1: but for treatments of patients who had suffered spinal cord injuries,
Speaker 1: there are three that have been approved. Those three are
Speaker 1: the XO gt XO is spelled e K s O UH,
Speaker 1: the Rewalk Exo skeleton, and the Indiego Exo skeleton Indigo
Speaker 1: is I n D E g O. The technologies all
Speaker 1: share a similar goal. They provide the support necessary to
Speaker 1: allow patients the opportunity to regain mobility and to rehabilitate.
Speaker 1: And it's hard to stress exactly how important this is.
Speaker 1: From a physiological level, these devices can help people build
Speaker 1: up their strength and endurance without that initial enormous hurdle
Speaker 1: they would have Without the support. Physical therapy can be
Speaker 1: grueling and the progress can be really slow and psychologically
Speaker 1: that's really discouraging. But having a device that can help
Speaker 1: stabilize and support a patient is immensely helpful. The patient
Speaker 1: can continue to work toward progress without having as large
Speaker 1: an initial challenge. Now they're still putting forth effort. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the whole purpose is to help the patient build
Speaker 1: up strength. So you don't want to take all the
Speaker 1: load off, you just want to make it more manageable
Speaker 1: so that progress is easier to come by. And the
Speaker 1: fact that patients can see results very quickly, you know,
Speaker 1: almost immediately, even if those results are due to the
Speaker 1: support of this technology, is a big boost for emotional states, right,
Speaker 1: and that positivity is important the technology. It's a real
Speaker 1: benefit to the quality of life, and it encourages the
Speaker 1: patient to continue in physical therapy and to continue to
Speaker 1: make that progress. When we come back, I'll talk more
Speaker 1: about industrial and military exo skeletons, as well as a
Speaker 1: special suit that in a way is meant to provide
Speaker 1: the opposite experience to the medical ones I just mentioned.
Speaker 1: But first let's take another quick break. One thing I
Speaker 1: haven't really covered is the development of unpowered exo skeletons.
Speaker 1: There are exo skeletons that don't have motorized powered components.
Speaker 1: These used devices like pneumatic breaks, which is similar to
Speaker 1: what you would see on a pneumatic door closer if
Speaker 1: you've ever seen a door that has that lever, And
Speaker 1: there's usually like a rectangular box at the top of
Speaker 1: the door. Those things are meant to pull a door
Speaker 1: closed and it's These are actually meant to help mitig
Speaker 1: the spread of stuff like smoke and fire, as well
Speaker 1: as to close secure doors so that they lock back
Speaker 1: in place. They might also require springs. That is, EXO
Speaker 1: skeletons that are unpowered might use springs that can hold
Speaker 1: tension on parts of the exoskeleton providing support. This is
Speaker 1: similar to stuff like the microphone boom I'm using right
Speaker 1: now at home. It's an arm that has the springs
Speaker 1: that allow it to hold tension so that if I
Speaker 1: position the arm in any particular way, it maintains that position. Uh,
Speaker 1: same sort of thing with EXO skeletons. They're EXO skeletons
Speaker 1: that use springs to do this as well. Exo, the
Speaker 1: company that I had mentioned earlier, has a few of
Speaker 1: these unmpowered exoskeletons that use this kind of technology. They
Speaker 1: don't have motors, they don't have computer chips or anything
Speaker 1: like that. They rely purely on physics to balance loads. Uh.
Speaker 1: There are models that include leg attachments that ultimately place
Speaker 1: weight on the ground below the operator. So imagine that
Speaker 1: the section that you slip your feet into and has
Speaker 1: a little bit of a stand that ends up transferring
Speaker 1: weight to the ground itself, so the person carrying the
Speaker 1: load using the exo skeleton doesn't feel like they're carrying
Speaker 1: the load. That weight is transferred through the exo skeleton
Speaker 1: to the ground below. People who use heavy machinery like
Speaker 1: heavy tools can wear one of these and have much
Speaker 1: of the weight of that tool transferred to the exoskeleton,
Speaker 1: and because there are no motors or anything like that,
Speaker 1: the operator can control all the movements. Um there's a
Speaker 1: reduced need for maintenance, so it's much less wear and
Speaker 1: tear on the device. There may be. In fact, there
Speaker 1: probably is reduced range of motion with these, so it's
Speaker 1: not like it gives you total freedom, but it does
Speaker 1: mean that you trade that for the ability to carry
Speaker 1: really heavy stuff for a really long time without it
Speaker 1: feeling like you're carrying heavy stuff. I've seen these things
Speaker 1: also take form like in steadicam type riggs. Steadicam riggs
Speaker 1: allow camera operators to put potentially very heavy cameras on
Speaker 1: a mechanical arm that attaches to a harness worn by
Speaker 1: the operator, and the camera would typically be too heavy
Speaker 1: and bulky to hold out like this, particularly for a
Speaker 1: long time. But the harness distributes the weight more like
Speaker 1: a backpack would, and the arm provides support. There are
Speaker 1: other elements that allow camera operators to get those smooth
Speaker 1: gliding shots like that famous sequence and Good Fellas. But
Speaker 1: I've done an episode on steadicams in the past, so
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna move on. But let's get back to
Speaker 1: powered exo skeletons. I want to talk about a genius
Speaker 1: named hammaun katz A Rooney. Uh. He is a scientist
Speaker 1: and professor of mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure I've totally mispronounced his name, and I
Speaker 1: apologize to him for that, But Casar Rooney played an
Speaker 1: integral role in pioneering research starting in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: really in exoskeletons. He was a founder of XO, the
Speaker 1: company that I've mentioned a couple of times now, the
Speaker 1: ones that create the XO g T and UM also
Speaker 1: those unpowered EXO skeletons I was just talking about. He
Speaker 1: led many R and D efforts to create exo skeletons
Speaker 1: to boost upper body and lower body capabilities with goals
Speaker 1: ranging from aiding workers doing difficult physically demanding jobs to
Speaker 1: helping people regain the ability to walk, and he helped
Speaker 1: create exo skeletons that could aid people to walk great
Speaker 1: distances so that they could do so without exhausting themselves.
Speaker 1: And his team developed the Human Universal Load Carrier or
Speaker 1: HULK incredible huh uh. HULK is an EXO skeleton that
Speaker 1: was designed to allow the wearer to carry a significant
Speaker 1: amount of weight, with the EXO skeleton taking most of
Speaker 1: that load, so a person wearing the HULK could carry
Speaker 1: up to two hundred pounds of stuff with the device
Speaker 1: providing the lifting capabilities. The EXO skeleton is made from
Speaker 1: titanium and it weighs fifty three pounds all by itself
Speaker 1: or around and that's without the batteries that are needed
Speaker 1: to actually power the thing, and as a twenty kilometer
Speaker 1: range of operation before needing a recharge, and that would
Speaker 1: be if you were to operate it at a walking
Speaker 1: speed of around four kilometers per hour over level terrain.
Speaker 1: The muscle, such as it is of the EXO skeleton
Speaker 1: is provided by the hydraulic system and a micro controller
Speaker 1: on the EXO skeleton self provides the brains needed to
Speaker 1: make sure that the system is moving in concert with
Speaker 1: the operator. More on that in a second so Exo
Speaker 1: Bionics sold the rights for the Hulk to lockeed Martin,
Speaker 1: and lockeed Martin continued the development of the exoskeleton in
Speaker 1: cooperation with the US military. The goal was to create
Speaker 1: a portable system that would allow US soldiers the capability
Speaker 1: of carrying heavy loads without the enormous amount of exertion
Speaker 1: it would typically require while walking over terrain. Unfortunately, the
Speaker 1: design ultimately proved to fall short of these goals. As
Speaker 1: an actual use, it appeared that operators would become exhausted
Speaker 1: despite the exo skeleton, or really, I should say because
Speaker 1: of the exoskeleton. That it wasn't necessarily the load they
Speaker 1: were carrying that was tiring them. It was literally trying
Speaker 1: to move inside this exo skeleton and getting it to
Speaker 1: do what they needed it to do. So the Hulk
Speaker 1: failed to perform up to expectations, but engineers and researchers
Speaker 1: learned a lot from the process, and the work with
Speaker 1: exo skeletons would continue. Generally, there's still some big challenges
Speaker 1: to overcome to make exo skeletons for military use of practicality,
Speaker 1: and you can think of the designs for these exo
Speaker 1: skeletons as falling into two broad types. Remember earlier I
Speaker 1: mentioned you can divide exoskeletons into different types of categories
Speaker 1: depending on your point of view. Well, in this case,
Speaker 1: we're talking about rigid exo skeletons. These are the ones
Speaker 1: that use stuff like titanium for the frames. They have
Speaker 1: the actual sort of skelet toll structure, and these exo
Speaker 1: skeletons only have flexibility at specific joints, and thus whomever
Speaker 1: is wearing the exoskeleton is limited in their movements by
Speaker 1: whatever degrees of freedom the exo skeleton has. So if
Speaker 1: the exo skeleton cannot bend a certain way, then the
Speaker 1: operator can't bend that way, So typically that means there's
Speaker 1: a reduced range of movement. These types of exo skeletons
Speaker 1: also offset weight in some way, meaning the person wearing
Speaker 1: the suit can usually carry more than they otherwise could.
Speaker 1: But the suits are also harder to move in like
Speaker 1: the Hulk was, so the person wearing it might tire
Speaker 1: out quickly anyway, not because the weight was too heavy,
Speaker 1: but just moving in the suit by itself requires a
Speaker 1: lot of effort. I mean imagine wearing like a big
Speaker 1: diving suit and moving around. The resistance you would encounter
Speaker 1: would wear you out pretty quickly, so the savings you
Speaker 1: get an energy by having the weight offset might be
Speaker 1: lost just by moving around in the suit anyway. The
Speaker 1: other type of exo skeletons that I wanted to chat
Speaker 1: about our flexible body skeletons. These are soft exo skeletons,
Speaker 1: not the rigid ones, so these do not use the
Speaker 1: frames that I was just talking about with the previous type. Instead,
Speaker 1: they consist of things like cuffs that you might wear
Speaker 1: around your limbs, like around your upper and lower arms
Speaker 1: or your upper and lower legs, and they typically attach
Speaker 1: back to some sort of backpack or other component that
Speaker 1: has cables attached from that component to the cuffs, and
Speaker 1: these cables can increase or release tension. There's a motor
Speaker 1: in that in that component, typically a backpack, that can
Speaker 1: either increase or decrease the tension on a cable to
Speaker 1: a cuff, and this allows the flexible exo skeleton to
Speaker 1: provide a bit of a performance boost to someone who's
Speaker 1: wearing it. The cables are meant to kind of act
Speaker 1: as an assist or your muscles. So when you walk,
Speaker 1: the tension on a cable would match the extension and
Speaker 1: contraction of your muscles and take a little bit of
Speaker 1: that workload off of you. So when your muscle is pulling,
Speaker 1: the cable can pull to adding a bit of a boost.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like giving someone a bit of a
Speaker 1: push on a swing. Uh, same sort of concept here.
Speaker 1: But these exoskeletons are not designed to offset any weight
Speaker 1: you're carrying. They don't make it easier for you to
Speaker 1: lift heavy things. In other words, they provide that small
Speaker 1: boost in performance if you're doing something like having to
Speaker 1: walk a long distance, though typically they work best on
Speaker 1: level grounds, so this capability is somewhat limited already anyway.
Speaker 1: But on the plus side, they're not as heavy as
Speaker 1: the rigid body style exoskeletons, so wearing it doesn't, you know,
Speaker 1: mean that you're putting on a two pounds suit or something.
Speaker 1: They also don't fight against the operator usually in any way,
Speaker 1: so they're a lot more comfortable to wear. But on
Speaker 1: the con side, they don't help you if your goal
Speaker 1: is to allow people to carry or operate heavy stuff,
Speaker 1: so their use case is a little bit limited. The
Speaker 1: development of a versatile exo skeleton that can be used
Speaker 1: in military applications continues. Some elements of design have found
Speaker 1: their ways into other military applications already, but as I mentioned,
Speaker 1: a truly practical exoskeleton hasn't really taken form yet. Over
Speaker 1: in the industrial world, we've seen a lot of designs
Speaker 1: that could work in areas like construction or manufacturing, primarily
Speaker 1: in applications where speed is not as important as safety
Speaker 1: and precision. In those cases, these devices can be particularly
Speaker 1: helpful if you're not worried about having to react quickly,
Speaker 1: and you're just worried about making very safe, very precise movements,
Speaker 1: then we got you covered. I want to close this
Speaker 1: out by talking about exo skeleton style suit I got
Speaker 1: to wear once upon a time, and it was back
Speaker 1: when I was writing and hosting the video series Forward
Speaker 1: the King. If you don't know what I'm talking about,
Speaker 1: you can go to YouTube and search fw thinking and
Speaker 1: the series should pop right up. I did a bunch
Speaker 1: of shows about futuristic topics, some of which have probably
Speaker 1: not aged so well because it was a few years ago.
Speaker 1: In fact, the exo skeleton video I was talking about
Speaker 1: was shot way back in two thousand sixteen, and the
Speaker 1: future rarely plays out the way we anticipate it well.
Speaker 1: But one of the topics was about a very special
Speaker 1: type of exo skeleton that I got to put on
Speaker 1: at CES. This one was not about enhancing someone's abilities,
Speaker 1: but rather working against the person who was wearing it
Speaker 1: in an effort to build a sense of understanding and
Speaker 1: empathy for others. It's called the R seventy I Suit
Speaker 1: from gen Worth. Now gen Worth is not your typical
Speaker 1: tech company. In fact, it's not a tech company at all.
Speaker 1: It's a long term care life insurance company. So they
Speaker 1: actually ended up licensing this technology from another UH organization.
Speaker 1: But they saw the need to teach younger folks understanding
Speaker 1: understanding about the challenges that elderly people often face. This
Speaker 1: helps illustrate the need for stuff like long term care
Speaker 1: insurance plans, but motivations aside, let's talk about the technology.
Speaker 1: The R seventy eye suit consists of a rigid body
Speaker 1: exoskeleton that has points of articulation at major joints like
Speaker 1: the knees, the hips, the shoulders, and the elbows. There's
Speaker 1: a helmet with a head mounted display and headphones as
Speaker 1: well as another component, and it also has a pretty
Speaker 1: hefty backpack that houses the computer system that helps run everything.
Speaker 1: The whole purpose of this technology is to simulate the
Speaker 1: various effects of aging. So if you were to put
Speaker 1: one of these on, and I can speak from experience,
Speaker 1: an operator could wirelessly change elements of that suit as
Speaker 1: you're wearing it to make your life more difficult. A
Speaker 1: head mold display in the helmet shows images from a
Speaker 1: pair of cameras that are mounted on the front side
Speaker 1: of the display. So imagine you've got a visor, and
Speaker 1: on the front of the visor, facing the outside world
Speaker 1: are a pair of cameras. You're looking at a screen
Speaker 1: that is a video feed of those cameras, so you're
Speaker 1: seeing a live video feed of the world around you. However,
Speaker 1: that means the operator can actually change things in the
Speaker 1: image digitally so that you are affected in suboptimal ways.
Speaker 1: So your vision might dim, or the operator could simulate
Speaker 1: something like a cataract and you would get a blurry, faded,
Speaker 1: white out spot in your vision, and so making out
Speaker 1: stuff ends up being a lot harder. Those headphones also
Speaker 1: make things more immersive. The operator can reduce the amount
Speaker 1: of volume that you hear, so you'd be picking up
Speaker 1: audio from microphones, but they could reduce the volume of
Speaker 1: that audio so it simulates hearing loss. Or they could
Speaker 1: turn up a high pitch sound to some reulate the
Speaker 1: experience of developing tonitis, which actually already have a little
Speaker 1: bit of tonitis already. So this was a sobering prediction
Speaker 1: of how things are going to be for me in
Speaker 1: the future. The rigid Exo skeleton has motorized joints, you
Speaker 1: know at the elbow, shoulders, hips, knees, and those can
Speaker 1: actually increase tension and torque, making it harder for you
Speaker 1: to move. And that can simulate anything from the experience
Speaker 1: of muscle loss, which is a thing that a lot
Speaker 1: of people go through as they get older, or the
Speaker 1: development of conditions like arthritis, or what it might be
Speaker 1: like if you've had to have a joint replacement, like
Speaker 1: a hip replacement or a knee replacement. And it is
Speaker 1: a really eye opening experience. But I want to warn
Speaker 1: you speaking about eye opening experiences, if you go to
Speaker 1: YouTube and you look for the specific episode of forward thinking,
Speaker 1: you're gonna see fat Jonathan, possibly at his fattest, so
Speaker 1: I look like a blue sausage that's been stuffed inside
Speaker 1: an exo skeleton. It is not my most uttering video
Speaker 1: by a long shot. However, it was a really interesting experience.
Speaker 1: So if you want to see it, that's fine. Just
Speaker 1: don't tell me how fat I was. I already know
Speaker 1: how fat I was. I've lost a lot of weight
Speaker 1: since then, and the tech really worked. By the way.
Speaker 1: I really did experience a lot of frustration as I
Speaker 1: tried to complete simple tasks or even just to interpret
Speaker 1: what was being said to me, and experiencing that gave
Speaker 1: me a bit of insight into what it's like for
Speaker 1: millions of people around the world every single day. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's their daily experience. It's one that I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: share right now in my own experience, but knowing that's
Speaker 1: what it's like made me feel a lot of empathy
Speaker 1: and compassion towards those who have to deal with it
Speaker 1: every day. It's tough, man. There are a ton of
Speaker 1: exoskeletons out there that I haven't really touched on, from
Speaker 1: the medical tech to the industrial stuff to other military applications.
Speaker 1: But we're still trying to tackle those pretty basic challenges
Speaker 1: I outlined earlier, maneuverability, power quirements, practicality. I think the
Speaker 1: power side might end up being the toughest nut to
Speaker 1: crack ultimately, I think some of the other ones might
Speaker 1: be easier. But you know, we see other technologies progress
Speaker 1: at a much faster rate than our ability to find
Speaker 1: solutions for stuff like making better batteries. There, that's just
Speaker 1: it's just a slower process to be able to to
Speaker 1: do that. You know, the improvements we make are there,
Speaker 1: but they don't tend to be dramatic. They tend to
Speaker 1: be very incremental improvements, so they aren't keeping pace with
Speaker 1: some other advances. However, a breakthrough could always be right
Speaker 1: around the corner, and I'm sure we will revisit this
Speaker 1: topic again in the future. In the meantime, if you
Speaker 1: guys out there have any suggestions for future episodes of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, let me know. Reach out to me on
Speaker 1: Twitter or Facebook. The handle it both is tech Stuff
Speaker 1: H s W and I'll tell to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: Text Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more
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