Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering is testing out a wearable exoskeleton robotic suit that workers can don to lift heavy loads effortlessly without risk of injury or strain.
Dubbed the “RoboShipbuilder”, the suit gives the workers superhuman strength so they can lift heavy equipment and other materials as they assemble enormous cargo ships at the company’s shipyard at Okpo-dong, Korea. Although still in the prototype stage, company officials hope to have the suits perfected and in regular use in the very near future, according to Gilwhoan Chu, Daewoo’s lead engineer for research and development.,
In the Works for More than a Decade
“We have been developing and applying robots and automation in shipbuilding for more than a decade,” Chu told the website New Scientist.
The exoskeleton suit is made of carbon, aluminum alloy and steel and fits anyone between five- to six-feet tall. Although the wearable robotic frame weighs about 60 pounds, workers do not feel the weight because the suit supports itself and is engineered to follow the movement of whoever is wearing it. Workers are able to walk at a normal pace when wearing it.
The prototype version has a battery life of three hours and allows the person wearing it to lift up to 66 pounds without effort.
Workers Climb into Suit
To get into the suit, workers begin by strapping their feet onto foot pads at the base of the wearable robotic exoskeleton. The user is connected to the suit by padded straps at the thighs, waist and across the chest. As the wearer moves their body, the suit bears the load for them using a system of hydraulic joints and electric motors that run up the outside the legs.
Everything is connected to a powerhouse backpack, which also serves as the brain center for the suit.
Frames designed for specific tasks can be attached to the backpack, some of which arc over the wearer’s head like a small crane. Besides increasing the wearer’s lifting ability, the suit also helps the user to move heavy objects with increased precision. Even though the wearer may be lifting very heavy objects, it feels as if they are as light as a feather.
During the testing phase, workers reported that the suit allowed them to lift heavy objects repeatedly without strain, but that the prototype did inhibit their movement and the would have preferred to be able to move faster and be able to lift even heavier loads.
Chu said that Daewoo researchers are working on making improvements to the wearable robotic suit before it is introduced permanently into the workplace.
“Our current research target of the lifting capacity is about 100 kilograms (220 pounds)”, Chu said.
Still Some Kinks to Be Worked Out
Another problem with the prototype version of the suit was that workers had difficulty walking on sloping or slippery surfaces. Also, when workers are in the suits, their ability to twist was limited. So workers making turns while carrying heavy loads tired out more easily.
While the whole thing sounds like something out of science fiction, it’s not too far out from an April Fool’s prank played by the website SHD Logistics earlier this year, which published a “news story” about a German engineering company unveiling a new, wearable forklift called the “Salien”. While that turned out to be a joke, the RoboShipbuilder is very much a reality.