70 August 2019 http://www.designworldonline.com DESIGN WORLDThe Robot Report
Rigid and soft: Rigid exoskeletons
offer power and precision, but they
can produce musculoskeletal stress
due to their weight and unnatural or
constrained movement. As a result, a
number of companies are developing
exoskeletons made of soft, lightweight,
and compliant materials. The systems
themselves are powered with soft muscle
actuators, compressed air, or flexion/
extension mechanisms. Examples include
Bioservo Technologies’ Ironhand and
Daiya Industry’s Power Assist Glove.
Organizations such as Harvard
University and Seismic, which are
developing soft exoskeletons for military
or consumer applications, respectively,
are likely to target the industrial sector at
some point.International Interest in
Industrial Exoskeletons
In addition to increasing lifting capacity
and minimizing physical stress, anotherdemand driver for industrial exoskeletons
is an aging labor pool and a shortage of
qualified replacements.
Global demand for industrial exo-
skeletons is already strong. ABI Research
has stated that the total addressable
market for industrial exoskeletons
exceeds 2.6 million units and that
shipments will grow from 7,000 units in
2018 to 301,000 by 2028, with revenue
of $5.8 billion by 2028.
Early this year, Ekso Bionics Inc. signed a
$100 million joint-venture agreement with
investors in China to build manufacturing
facilities there and expand its marketing
efforts. The company previously sold 75
EksoVest industrial exoskeletons to Ford
for use in two plants in Dearborn, Mich.
It was the largest adoption of industrial
exoskeletons to date.
In March, German Bionic presented its
IO cloud platform, which it said connects
its third-generation Cray exoskeleton with
networked manufacturing systems throughThe Paexo exoskeleton
assists manufacturing
and service workers with
strenuous activities,
particularly overhead work.| PaexoSarcos Robotics Guardian XO
industrial exoskeleton.
| Sarcos Roboticsthe Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and
applies machine learning to controls for
Industry 4.0.
German prosthetics maker Ottobock
also plans to sell industrial exoskeletons.
Eighty percent of people who tried the
Paexo exoskeleton for overhead work at a
Volkswagen plant in Bratislava said they’d
recommend it to their colleagues.
Comau SpA developed its Muscular
Aiding Tech Exoskeleton (MATE) with
Iceland-based ÖSSUR and Italy-based
IUVO. MATE is designed to be lightweight,
easy to use, and suitable for tasks such as
restocking shelves.
Similarly, automakers including BMW,
Ford, and Hyundai are already using San
Diego-based Levitate Technologies Inc.’s
AIRFRAME exoskeleton (see sidebar). Each
of these industrial exoskeletons advances
the state of the art for weight, battery
duration, and responsiveness. RRFord-Exoskeleton_Robot Report 8-19_Vs5.LL.indd 70 8/5/19 12:30 PM